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Jan. 28, 2021 - The Delingpod - James Delingpole
53:28
James and Laura's Chinwag #12
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I love Danny Paul.
Come and subscribe to the podcast, baby.
I love Danny Paul.
And there's another time subscribe with me.
I love Danny Paul.
Come and subscribe to the podcast, baby.
Yes.
Lots of people volunteered to pay for your equipment.
And I've been slack about putting you in touch, and it didn't help that you sent me an email saying...
Oh, yeah, that's some people that said it didn't.
Everyone's telling me they don't care, they just like the chat.
But actually, it might be a good idea, if I can get my act together, it might be an idea if I put them in touch with you, because why not?
I mean... No, no, that's fine, that's fine.
I'm way too lazy to do it myself, I'll say that now, so... Yeah, I'm very tech stupid, as most people will have figured out by now.
No, I think this is a problem we share, unfortunately, and I think for techies it must drive them insane, meeting these creatures that just like...
They might as well be.
Yeah, I did notice one comment.
Sounds great.
The time I did it on the iPad, it was like, first of all, you could only see half my face, and then towards the end, the line dropped and you had to recall, and we ended up swapping.
And there was one comment going, oh, I'm just loving the crazy camera work, and then they swap at the end!
Yeah, actually, Yes, it's deliberate, isn't it?
Should we try that one?
You couldn't do this, you know, intentionally.
You couldn't have this level of, well, anyway.
So somebody sent me, I didn't read it, somebody sent me a man down message about your recent tweets.
It wasn't, you know, I don't know what you said, I always say two things can be right at the same time, James.
in some pathetic, girly way.
- No, no, I always say two things can be right at the same time, James.
So, no, oh no, I think- - What's surrendering and fighting on? - I think I was replying to a George Eaton tweet.
So obviously, after yesterday's announcement that there were 100,000 people who died with either COVID on their certificate, or the doctors, by the way, this is included in this number, the doctors have deemed that they had COVID three symptoms, because there's two ways they measure it.
The government does 28 days of COVID on a certificate.
These headlines are actually 20 days.
No, I don't think they made that change.
No, I've only... I've since always read Still 28 Days.
I saw, we had this before, and you said, yeah, I did see that tweet as well, but I don't think they've changed that.
Anyway, pausing that.
And I said, George Eaton gave a list of things, you know, obviously everybody was like, it's all, it's all Boris Johnson's fault, blah, blah, blah, which I'll get on to in a minute.
And George Eaton was like, didn't lock down soon enough, didn't close the borders soon enough, test and trace is a disaster, and maybe something else.
Now, as you know, my main issue is the lockdown.
And I, and we may disagree with this, I do think they should have closed the borders this time last year.
I actually do.
Or tighten it up.
And maybe you're, you know, shocked on that.
Or, and I think they outsource test and trace to some private company for some of their mates to make some money, right?
So I'm not defending that.
You know.
Are you looking at the tech, or are you in shock?
Yeah, of course I am.
No, no, sorry.
I don't like being wrong on stuff.
Yeah, oh sorry, yeah.
No, do look that up, because we are accurate.
I always put myself... we are accurate, James.
Or at least I really do for accuracy.
That's why they call us AccuRaw, don't they?
AccuRaw, because we are accurate.
On one thing.
You see, if they get you on one thing, then your whole credibility is shot through.
So I'm always very careful or I try to be very careful to be accurate.
Did you see your bog trotting compatriot, if you don't mind me using that phrase.
Sam, what's his name?
Sam, that child, the boy child, the smoking boy child.
Sam Bowman.
Yeah, the proper.
Yeah, extraordinary.
I mean, what is he?
He's a neoliberal, he thinks?
Anyway, whatever.
Yeah.
Obviously, we can't say nasty things about people because what happened that time when we had to cut out a bit, not mentioning any names, Laura.
But so Sam Bowman.
Yeah.
Who's been a complete bedwetter throughout, has set up this new website in collaboration with Lavrentiy Beria, aka Neil O'Brien, the no-mark MP.
It's just like himself by being a kind of the most efficient member of the NKVD.
He made a series of claims on this supposed fact-checking website designed to kind of put lockdown sceptics in its place, termed Lockdown Sceptics.
Yeah.
And I've just read his Twitter thread today, just exploding all the myths that Sam Bowman has been promoting on this supposedly fact-rich site.
Like the idea that there is this massive glut of under-65s in the hospitals.
Yeah.
I think actually it's a third or under 65 and two thirds or over 65.
But I find anyway with this stuff that this obsession with death figures like the one you mentioned at the beginning about 100,000 people and whether it's 28 days or 60 days, I think it is 60 days.
I think I did find a thing saying 60 days while I was looking just then.
Either way, People dying of other things are being marked down as their deaths are being ascribed to COVID.
I mean, a very tiny... The number of people who die without comorbidities is just incredibly small anyway.
You know, whatever you can think of.
But the idea that these deaths are suddenly being put down to COVID is pure, pure propaganda.
In fact, one more thing, before I wind you up and say...
I'm a member of various various COVID discussion groups, and they've got a range of people.
And I just saw the most fantastic stats yesterday, which showed the deaths relative to population in any given year.
And 2020, which you'd think would be astronomical, was actually not as bad per capita population As for example, 2003.
And I think it was of a piece more or less with with 2018.
So I think we need to bear that in mind always, always, always the most important thing that absolute deaths are the most important thing.
And, you know, it's a statistical sleight of hand to be able to ascribe these deaths to COVID.
Yeah, look, I mean, in terms of the numbers, as you know, numbers aren't my, they are not my issue.
I don't hang my hat on the numbers, but I hang my hat on the fact that I think lockdowns are completely immoral.
But the numbers are obviously very important to the general population.
It is also very important, as I said, to be accurate.
We know that the 100,000, to say that 100,000 people died of COVID is incorrect.
We know that's not the case because it's 28 days, let's say, on the certificate.
And also, I only realized that today for these numbers, they say any doctor who thinks he's got a symptom of COVID will put that down on the certificate.
OK, so we know that it's not accurate.
However, it is true to say there is a lot of people who will be alive today if it weren't for COVID.
OK.
I mean, that is true.
Even if you take the comorbidities and all the rest.
Yeah, it's true they've got comorbidities.
But they would probably still be here if it wasn't for COVID.
And it is true that each individual death is a tragedy.
They'd have got flu instead.
Well, I don't know about that.
They'd have got flu or something else.
You're already playing the enemy's game.
No, I'm not.
I'm not playing the enemy's game.
Some people have died.
Some people have died of COVID, okay, and it's very sad.
But what I do object to, and I do think this is actually a harder position to say than, oh, there's no COVID at all, is the hysteria is disproportionate.
The sort of almost comparing it to war-like conditions is not only disproportionate, it's morally wrong.
You know, this sort of, this is far more dangerous, I think, as I said, frightening the population, having a disproportionate sense of hysteria than actually inaccurate numbers.
To me, you see, that is far worse.
So, you know, they're essentially saying that this is, I mean, I've listened to Radio 4 on and off on the way on this morning.
And, you know, they are essentially, and Piers Morgan's a big one for this, they're essentially saying this is like a war.
Look, it's a virus, OK?
Even splitting you and me, even it could be a very serious virus that's killed a lot of people, but it's not an invading force.
It doesn't seek to destroy your way of life.
It's not going to imprison all the men and rape all the women and children.
It's not going to drop a bomb randomly down upon your head.
So this sort of You know, this is our war.
Finally, we have had a chance to test ourselves is wrong.
I'm sorry.
It's still a tragedy for each family.
But I don't think it's a national tragedy.
That could be a controversial thing to say.
It's 100,000 people out of a population of 66 million.
What will be a national tragedy is if we never recover from this.
Lockdowns, that's the first thing.
I have an issue with it in terms of how they're comparing it to wars, etc.
And number two though, I mean on the numbers, I do think if you want to be utilitarian about it, the lockdowns will kill more people than the virus.
I mean that I do agree with you.
They don't want people dying of Covid in hospitals, but if you die to despair, or suicide, or bankruptcy, or whatever, or cancer because of your cancer treatment is cancelled, that doesn't get a headline in the front of the Times.
So they don't they don't really care as much about that.
And I think.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then finally, in terms of the numbers, once you take into account, you know, developing countries, the countries that are making all our clothes and Primark and all of that stuff.
And once they lose those contracts and those jobs, these these, you know, jobs that these people need to literally live.
I mean, again, you're talking millions.
You're not talking 100,000.
It probably will end up at 150,000.
or it probably will end up at 150,000.
So, you know, they are the issues that I think, you know, I have an issue with. - Well, did you see, there's so much to keep up with, but it was a brilliant thing that I think Ivor Cummins mentioned the other but it was a brilliant thing that I think Ivor Cummins Dr. Sebastian Rushworth.
He's a Swede, despite his English name.
I get his emails.
And he did a very good one showing effectively herd immunity, community immunity, as Ivor calls it, in Sweden.
And they reckon that 45% of the Swedish population is now carrying the antibody as well.
If you extrapolate from that, I think probably there's a very similar case here.
Lots of people have had it or have got the antibodies or whatever.
I mean, some people have had the antibodies, Mike Yeadon argues, from previous coronaviruses or from SARS-CoV-1.
But anyway, if a significant chunk of the population has the antibodies for coronavirus, It's going to be inevitable, given the way they diagnose deaths, that an increasing number of people are going to die with COVID because more and more people have been exposed to it.
And I think it's so important that we, you're not good with numbers, OK, but we need absolutely to come back to those total, total deaths.
They're the only meaningful statistic.
And even they are subject to manipulation because, as you rightly said, lots of people now are going to be dying of of untreated cancer, of suicide, of all manner of miseries resulting from the lockdown.
And the government is never going to admit this.
Rather, they're going to double down.
We've seen this already.
We've seen every time they've doubled down, they've never backtracked.
They're going to just ascribe all these extra deaths to coronavirus.
So it's going to be a never-ending A never-ending cycle of escalation on the government's part.
I mean, these people, basically, they're using these lockdown zealots, as I said, these lockdown hawks, are saying now, there, there, you've got your 100,000 deaths, you know, are you happy now, lockdown deniers?
And I'm like, no, but hang on, we already locked down three times.
So actually, the numbers will go to our case.
You locked down three times, you still ended up with 100,000 dead.
They're telling us if we hadn't locked down or if we'd locked down sooner, it would have been less.
I mean, that's definitely up for debate.
I mean, the other issue, again, arguing on their side is how... I tell you, I almost felt sorry for Boris Johnson yesterday, and that's saying a lot.
How...
How could they get it so wrong?
I mean, why would Whitty go out there and say 20,000 will be a good number if they really did, as I said, on their case, say that this is so bad, this is so serious, it's so infectious?
How could you say in a population of 66 million, we're going to get away with 20,000 deaths?
You've been out by 80,000.
Right?
That's a big error.
You should never have said that.
I mean, I'll tell you what he should have said at the very beginning.
And I mean, it will end up at about 150,000 at least.
So that's going to put them 130,000 out, right?
These are these are huge errors.
Now, Niall Ferguson is saying, So Niall Ferguson is saying we would have had a half a million deaths if you didn't lock down.
And then Witty, I've seen a few days later, says 20,000 would be a good result.
You're like, you couldn't possibly have thought a lockdown would save 480,000 lives.
So I can be good at numbers.
That is, you know, I'm not a computer model, but there is just no way a lockdown could save that many people.
So somebody is lying.
Somebody is exaggerating both ends, right?
Deaths without a lockdown, deaths with a lockdown.
It's just, you know, you could, as you say, you could argue the numbers, excess deaths are important, as you said, or even that can't be trusted because they're now taking in all the, you know, you have to count the fact that Cancelled cancer treatment is because of lockdown, not because of COVID.
I think what Boris Johnson has done here, and he is going to be, he's being crushed obviously on Twitter and GMB are running a Should Boris Johnson Resign poll.
And I always said this at the beginning, I mean, to me, right, if you looked again, you're looking through history, saying you can control a virus, like seriously control a virus down to, as I said, saving, it seems, 480,000 lives, to me is hubris, if that's the right word, right?
It's akin to saying...
I am going to fight a war on two fronts.
I think I can build a Western democracy in the middle of Afghanistan.
That is the level of error or idiocy or arrogance, whatever you want to say, that is being displayed currently by Western governments.
As I've said before and I've said again, it's a virus.
You can limit it.
I accept that.
You can control it and slow it down a little bit.
And you can certainly mitigate certain things.
As I said, I wouldn't have had a problem with them closing the border.
There are a few other things that I did.
It wouldn't have worked though.
idiotic.
Actually, come on.
How do you close the board?
Look, if you start saying they should have done more, they should have been more draconian, you are already playing into the hands of the side which wish to argue that this is a kind of unique,
This is a unique virus This is a unique experience and as we've already established but by my mere mention of the fact that in 2003 Yeah 2018 the deaths the the the deaths were pretty much the same that tells you something absolutely cast-iron and that cast-iron things that tell you is that There is nothing special about this virus.
We did not close down the borders in 2003.
We didn't do it in 2018.
We didn't even do it in Spanish flu.
So you can never concede this territory to them because there is details about this virus.
For example, The fact that it does seem to be engineered in a lab with this gain of function, which seems to have made it more infectious.
But we know what the real IFR rate is of this virus because we saw it on the crystal, whatever, the cruise ship.
It's been calculated and I think the figures have confirmed it since.
So there's nothing really, really special about it.
It's nasty if you get it and so on.
By the way, sorry, changing the subject, we've got some plumbers in at the moment and we've had quite a few plumbers recently.
Right.
Like for burst pipes and showers and things.
We had quite a sort of throughput of them, different varieties.
And here's something I've noticed.
You've really still failed, yeah?
Here's something I've noticed.
The ones that insist on wearing masks throughout are much, much worse than the ones who take the mask off as soon as you give them permission.
There are some that say, oh no, no, I can't, I've got vulnerable family or I'm isolated, whatever.
They always come up with some crappy, weedy excuse, the ones who want to keep their masks on.
But the ones who take the masks off are always, in every case, I mean, okay, this is confirming my prejudices, but it's true.
The ones who take their masks off are better plumbers.
They're probably better looking, yeah.
They are easier to talk to.
Yes.
And they're much more can-do.
The ones with the masks, they sort of suck in their teeth, suck in their teeth behind their masks and they, ooh, it's a bit of an old house this, I'm not used to this and they can't work out.
The non-mask plumbers know exactly how everything works.
They can do it and they don't mind going up a ladder to investigate and stuff.
What does that tell you about this world we're living in?
I don't know, James, are you really far down the rabbit hole?
No, I just want to say in terms of the numbers, and I know you can probably find it frustrating that I'm conceding ground, but sometimes I just do that because I think, look, in the mainstream media and the main population, what can you win on and what can you not?
And most people do think it's more than flu.
So you're just thinking even, and actually this is something lawyers do, they're saying taking the opposition case at its highest, you're still wrong.
So this is something I do quite a bit.
But look, I get it.
I think it's hubris.
I think it's maximum media hysteria at the moment.
Again, from the media who told us that the death of Princess Diana was a national tragedy.
And that was only one poor woman who was killed in a car crash in Paris.
But now they've got 100,000 people dead and now it's a national tragedy.
You're like, yeah, maybe you should have waited until actual people, people, you know, you had a lot of people dead before you started calling things a national tragedy.
No, I know, I don't, yeah.
Do you remember that?
Were you here when that happened?
No, I wasn't here.
I was in Ireland.
It was still really big in Ireland.
People loved it.
Yeah, and I remember my mother woke me up and told me it was, yeah, it was big.
Big, big, big.
Because there have been various clues, landmarks, if you like, on the route to falling over the cliff.
on the rocks where we find ourselves now.
And definitely that was a pivotal moment, I think, in our cultural history.
I know Peter Hitchens did a lot on it, yeah.
I remember at the time vividly, that was the first time I felt there was this huge divide in the country between those of us who thought, this is a bit over the top, you know, she's dead and it's sad, And the people who just wanted to... their lives had fallen apart.
This was the most important thing ever.
And this outpouring of ersatz confected... I mean, I'm sure they believed it, but it was just...
Well actually, now speaking of Princess Diana, because I'm really, I'm always interested in how the media work.
Media and government are basically the only two things I'm interested in.
Annabelle, actually one moment, could you just close that press, thanks very much.
Open presence, anything more annoying?
So there's a programme on this on Netflix, again, looking back about 20 years, not like Diane in her own words, but it was something like the day the princess died.
And it was really interesting because, yes, you do recall the incredible hysteria, the out of control, like, Just almost indecency of it, you know, in that two boys have lost their mother and you are acting like you have lost your own mother.
Have you no shame?
And I think, actually, 20 years later, when William and Harry have said, like, yeah, you know, it was a little bit off-putting that people were claiming this unique tragedy for themselves when we had just lost our mothers, right?
And I think a lot of people looking back have been a bit like, yeah, well, maybe I shouldn't have been so hysterical in front of Prince in the palace.
But if you remember, right, At first, what happened?
People were blaming the media, right?
And the newspapers, because obviously the paparazzi were chasing her, and she died in the tunnel, right?
That's right, yeah.
Everyone was scared.
People were really, really going for the media, and then you know what the media did?
Because it's really clear on that programme, they were very clever.
They switched it, and remember, targeted the Queen.
Why aren't you down here?
Why isn't the flag?
How very dare you stay in Scotland?
Yes.
To save their own asses.
That's why I just hate the media so much.
There's nobody... So that's what... Yeah, so it's a really interesting case study on how the media manipulation works.
So they really subtly changed it to, well, yeah, the paparazzi weren't great, but where is the flag?
And why isn't the Queen down here?
And, oh, you're so cold hearted.
And how very dare you do the stiff upper lip thing again?
And you're like, you are a shower.
You are a shower.
And actually, speaking of this, all the media are compromised on Covid, by the way, because, you know, they're making a small fortune from all these ridiculous ads.
This is the back of my times today.
Their government are obviously paying them for this propaganda.
So I'm looking him in the eyes, Laura.
Yeah, I looked him in the eyes and I know I see.
Yeah, the actor will be fine.
I see a crisis actor.
Yeah, I wonder how much the crisis actor was paid for that.
You know, there are actually agencies.
There are talent agencies for crisis actors.
This is a real thing.
Talent agencies provide crisis actors to appear in photographs like that.
And to appear in videos and stuff.
So all the media are compromising this.
They're all taking government money.
We don't take government money.
I don't take government money.
The website doesn't take government money.
I'm not saying that this would be... I think it's a bribe.
But you are, they are, these ads are a lot of money and they're all in the Sunday Times, they're all in the Times, all the papers are making a lot of money from these government propaganda ads.
Government money?
Just bear that in mind.
Do you want to know a fact?
Tell me.
Government money is covered in poo.
It's coated in poo.
You know like banknotes that they say you can find traces of cocaine.
All government money has faeces all over it and that's why you don't want to touch it.
It's just horrible.
No.
Yeah, exactly.
So that's why you and I are pure and untainted.
I recommend watching that viewer.
It's buried somewhere in Netflix.
I watched it the very, very first lockdown.
I just thought, oh, my God, this is the same thing all over again.
Again, it's manufacturing consent, basically.
You know, I just think, you know, just have some proportion and again, have a sense of sort of decency.
You know, seriously.
It's just wrong.
I'm gonna have to read that book.
Have you read it?
Chomsky?
You know, I bought it.
I know, I read the back of it.
I think I still have it.
I got it in America.
It's quite a difficult book to get.
I got it when I was back in a hundred years ago when I was in the States.
I think, but I don't think it's been liberated from the garage for like two years, but I do have it.
No, it's a great phrase.
It's so true though.
It's so true.
Something weird's happened to me recently.
I've started getting messages from... I mean, it's really quite touching, actually.
I've started getting messages from people on the hard left, or formerly on the hard left, saying to me, I totally agree with you and I've come around to your way of thinking.
Which is really nice.
And I feel the same way about Chomsky.
I'm sure he talks absolute bollocks on a lot of things.
He absolutely nailed the media in his theories about manufactured consent.
Look, you can manufacture consent for war if you want to.
I mean, you know, it's easy to do.
You build it up for long enough, you take the long road.
You talk about manufactured consent, that pro-life referendum in Ireland after last year, that was Tell me.
Tell me.
They love it.
on that.
Look, the whole, you know, it's just be accurate.
Can I tell you two small run-ins I've had with the Conservatives?
Tell me.
Well, it wasn't a big thing.
So, Paul Goodman, sorry, this may be boring for the viewers, I don't know.
Paul Goodman had a piece in the Times.
No, they love it.
Had a piece in the Times on Saturday.
I kind of want, because I don't want to misquote him, I kind of want to pull it up.
I might pull it up in a minute.
Are you going to get it?
Well, I can pull it up.
I have a subscription, as you know.
Well, I can do sort of TikTok movements while you... Yeah, well, I'm not... You can still see me, can't you?
Can you?
I can, yeah, no, but if you were to disappear, I could just entertain the viewer with... Oh, you could dance.
Right, so let me go.
Classic saves.
I mean, this is a small point, but again, I think it's the lawyer in me that just...
It just sends me, I tell you though, Matthew Syed had a great piece about Piers Morgan in the Sunday Times.
He really took him, he's called him like a plague on democracy or something.
It was really, really very bad.
That's a bit harsh on, it's a bit harsh on plagues though, isn't it?
A little bit, yeah.
Even the Black Death, I don't think, even if it's the darkest moments could never emulate Piers Morgan.
Because of his lack of nuance, I think, which of course is, you know, of course.
So where was this?
I don't know why this really annoyed me.
Anyway, so he was saying, Paul Goodman was saying, you know, this is why, oh, again, it's very subtle campaign against lockdown sceptics, right?
Well, actually not so subtle campaign.
So he's going into why, I think, why there's such support for this.
Well, I mean, let's ignore the massive propaganda campaign, will we?
OK, aside from that, Paul.
So he goes, the third reason for the government's surprising popularity, they're not so popular anymore, is the collapse of Sweden as a model for lockdown skeptics.
Collapse, bear that word in mind.
It has become harder to laud the country for offering a voluntary, low-key alternative to living in a pandemic since it prepared the ground for a lockdown of its own this month in the wake of rising deaths.
So I tweeted him going, this is what you said.
Can you give me some evidence?
And it was a bit of a back and forth.
First of all, I thought, I'm pretty sure I would have heard of Sweden had locked down.
No, they haven't locked down.
Pretty much everything is open apart from, I don't know, like swimming pools and stuff like that.
And he had said, no, no, they have passed a law that will allow them, should it be necessary, to shut some things down.
And it was like shopping centers and some private business.
So I'm like, OK, that's fine.
OK, yes, that is preparing the ground.
You didn't say they have locked down.
I accepted that.
They have prepared the ground.
And I'm like, but hang on a second.
I mean, Sweden doesn't collapse as a model.
Because A, they haven't locked down.
B, even if they have prepared the ground for shutting some businesses, it's not a full stay-at-home order.
Do you see what I mean?
So we're in a stay-at-home order, whereas this would have been, I'm going to shut some shopping centres and some businesses.
And of course, it didn't even touch schools, which is a big thing.
Didn't even touch schools.
And I'm like, okay, so it hasn't locked down.
Even if it did lock down, it's not going to be a full, it's not a full stay at home order and schools are going to stay open.
So actually, and, and remember, it would still be a full year after we've imposed three ruinous lockdowns.
So actually, you know, Sweden has not collapsed as a model.
I'm just like, can I just... Well, Laura, isn't that... Does that not annoy you?
Yeah.
This annoys me.
It more than annoys me.
It fills me with the sin, in your book, of despair.
Let's take Paul Goodman.
He used to be a Conservative MP.
He has a reputation as a bright boy.
I think he edited.
Did he even found Conservative Home?
I think he's one of the editors on it.
He still runs it, yeah.
He is a Telegraph leader writer or Times leader writer.
They give these jobs traditionally to the kind of sort of people who almost get into all souls kind of thing and yet here he is this this man of the establishment with intellectual rigor supposedly talking absolute bollocks and you can say this of so you can say this of so many people you can say this of look Dominic Lawson.
Dominic Lawson, the go-to guy for your facts on any given subject.
Writing bollocks.
Melanie Phillips.
Mad Mel.
I mean, I used to call her Mad Mel affectionately because she was like crazy light.
Crazy like us.
But no, she's just completely lost it.
She's just absolutely thrown away all her moral or intellectual authority embracing this totalitarian overreaction to coronavirus.
None of these people are interrogating it as they should.
None of these people are criticising it as they should.
Instead, what are they doing?
They're promoting a campaign against people like us.
You have no power.
And that's the other thing.
And I said in the last podcast, do your job.
Go and hold the government to account.
They have exercised power never before seen, you know, at peacetime over the population.
And here you are going, oh, well, I think Sweden's going to collapse as a model, even though it won't.
And they're just dying for Sweden to impose that lockdown, aren't they?
They just cannot wait to see if they close a couple of shops.
So that was the one, that was the one thing.
And then, oh yeah, so Dan Hodges and Julie Hartley Brewer, I shouldn't insert myself into these arguments because I always think you should.
Don't mention them.
Well, no, no.
So they're having a bit of a ding-dong and Dan writes a piece in this, you know, this, what is it, Mail on Sunday?
I didn't read all of it, but again, I just get annoyed with small words.
And he's like, the lockdown is going to be, you know, don't listen to these lockdown sceptics.
They're all crazy.
We did need it.
And it's going to be lifted soon.
And do you know when soon is to dad?
It'll start to be lifted soon.
That's July, isn't it?
No, Easter.
That's 10 weeks away.
Now, James, I tweeted, I said, James, if I said I'm going to have a baby soon, you'd say, all right, in the next week or two.
And if I said, no, that's 10 weeks away, you'd be like.
That's not soon, Laura.
That's 10 weeks away.
If I said to my kids, you're going back to school soon, and they said, all right, next week.
And I said, no, no, not until after Easter.
To me, that would be cruel, right, to say that to a child.
Or I'm going on holiday soon.
I mean, soon to me means in the very immediate future.
It doesn't mean 10 weeks away.
And do you see all these small inaccuracies?
And the other thing is, so not only are they inaccurate, everything is so vague, right?
Like, don't you dare ask me for an exit plan.
Like, how very dare you?
You know, you're in your lockdown state now forever.
As I said, don't call me, I'll call you.
Why are you asking me about schools?
And also they go from like, do you notice how they go from one school, it won't be after half term, it could be by Easter.
It's like, hang on, you've just blown up like four, well I have to count the weeks, about four weeks.
Every day out of a school counts to a child.
You know, so OK, maybe you can't maybe you can't get them back immediately after half term, but you could get them back the week after or the week after that.
You know, you can't just write these weeks off.
But sure, what do they care?
You know, it'll happen soon.
And Sweden's going to collapse as a model.
And don't ask me for an exit plan.
And maybe 100,000 people died of COVID, but maybe it was just on their birth certificate.
We don't really know.
We'll keep it all vague.
But the one thing we won't keep vague is the hysteria.
That way we will ratchet up.
You've said this before.
This is beyond kind of accidental stupidity.
This is willful cruelty.
They actually do not give a damn about the suffering they're causing.
They're actually reinforcing the misery with their policy.
I think that we've reached the stage where we're never going to reason them into sense.
They're the only thing that's going to buck their ideas up.
You see, I don't know whether you've seen in Denmark, a mayor, a Danish mayor has said that Denmark is heading towards civil war.
I thought this was Holland.
Aren't the protests, they're Dutch protests.
Oh, maybe, maybe, sorry.
Yeah, I got my D wrong.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sorry, sorry.
I saw that civil war for right.
Yes, that's right.
There were some riots at Eindhoven, weren't there, which looked pretty tasty.
I mean, normally I wouldn't be getting excited about riots, but I think that this is an issue where it really is freedom is at stake.
This is not like about identity politics or anything trivial like that.
This is for the future of Western civilization.
And I don't, in our small way, we in this country, We're having our little rebellion.
I hope it's a big rebellion, but I don't know.
You know this thing on the 30th?
This where businesses are opening?
All right, go on.
I mentioned it to Toby and he didn't know about it.
And I thought that was poor.
And I thought... I'm the poor of the marketing department of the people who are promoting this rebellion.
Oh, this is the great reopening.
Poor on Toby's part for not being more interested in it.
I saw your tweet.
Yeah, I saw your tweet on it.
All right, go on.
Where what people are going to open up their shops and stuff.
Yes.
And I just wanted to remember the name of the... I keep forgetting.
It's called... Silly me.
It's called The Great Reopening.
You can certainly find it on Telegram.
Business owners, open your business.
We must unite and stand together for our freedom.
Our fellow Italians did it en masse with 50,000 of them coming together to open at the same time.
If they can do it, so can we.
Yeah.
I used to look, I used to look down on the, well, you know, in that English way that we have, look at the continentals with their, you know, the French constantly out on strike, farmers blocking the road with their tractors at the drop of a hat and excitable Italians and whatever.
And now I look across at, you know, Germans, Germans rebelling against their, Germans of all people.
I suppose they've had more of an experience of fascism than we have, and I suppose the same goes for the Italians.
In fact, everyone on the continent has been occupied, haven't they, by the Nazis, whereas we're a bit kind of naive about that kind of thing, because unless you live in the Channel Islands, you never experienced it.
But maybe it's time we recovered that.
In a way, this is even more decent, if you want, than street protests, because they're just opening their businesses, right?
They're just exercising their human rights to work and conduct their business.
I mean, I think I think the problem with that is unless they have local support, which I don't think they will have again, because everybody's terrified and no one will go in.
I think there and then you'll be seen again as the granny killer and you don't support the NHS.
It's that it's difficult to do.
But yeah.
Yeah, but it's not helpful sort of pre pre judging the outcome, predetermining the outcome.
No one's going to bother.
I'll tell you what isn't good is that the fact that very few know about us.
But I guess, again, without us, That does bother me.
Yeah.
Will you put it out on your Twitter if I can find it?
I'll tweet it again.
Definitely.
Yeah.
No, that's no problem.
By the way, by the way, the vaccine.
Oh, my God.
This is your gig.
I can't go there.
Go on.
OK, so number one, it's not even even technically a vaccine.
Because it's not live.
Number two, it doesn't stop you.
It neither stops you getting coronavirus, nor does it stop you spreading coronavirus.
All it does is possibly alleviating the symptoms.
But the worst thing for me, and this is really worrying, is that if you are exposed to the wild version of the virus, it increases your chances of having a bad reaction.
Yes.
You know, you can overreact, your immune system has been overstimulated, or I'm not sure exactly what the process is.
But I do know that it actually puts you at greater risk of dying.
I heard that very early on.
Yeah.
And this is what this is what Dolores Cahill was talking about on the podcast we did right at the beginning.
She was saying that there is there is research showing that, for example, I think American American soldiers who were given a vaccine of some sort ended up having a really bad reaction.
Right.
So this this is what this is what can happen.
And and yet All we read in the newspapers is how great this thing is.
Pieces by Sam Bowman and Tom Harwood.
Why I will personally inject every person in the country if they pay me because it's that important kind of thing.
And it's not.
It's not a magic bullet.
In fact, it's an evil bullet that could probably kill you.
Could possibly kill you.
Have you had it?
No.
You're not going to take it?
No.
No, but I'm neutral.
I'm not saying one way, I'm not advising people one or the other.
My parents will get it.
I'm not going to tell them not to get it.
Please just don't use the phrase.
The most infuriating phrase in the language is, no, no, no, is, I'm not an anti-vaxxer, but... And it's of a piece with...
I'm no fan of Donald Trump.
Yeah, I know, I know.
These are the most tiresome phrases in the internet.
I say this because I haven't done all the research on it.
And I don't like to take very big... I don't like to take positions where I haven't done, you know, a lot of research on it.
I mean, the friend... We have a friend who had COVID and he does have the long COVID.
He's lost his taste and sense and smell.
And I'm pretty sure he won't get the vaccine on the same basis in that.
A, he's probably immune, and B, you could be risking a bad reaction.
So, look, if I was over 80, James, I'd probably be taking that vaccine.
But, I mean, I'm not going to do it now.
No, I know that you wouldn't do it.
My dad took it and he didn't like it at all.
Oh, you said, yeah, he didn't want to take it.
So, what made him change his mind?
Oh, they kept bullying him.
I think they asked him four times to get this thing done.
And there was lots of sort of peer group pressure and stuff.
You know, what few oldies, fellow oldies, you know, they were just kind of ostracizing him.
Yeah.
So he had no choice.
I mean, it's very scary, this pressure.
So he's had, what, his first shot, but it's an... He's had his first one, yeah.
It's another 12 weeks.
They pushed back the second one.
He's not dead yet, but here's the thing, Laura.
We know there have been cases of people dying of it.
And you just know that if it happened to one of your loved ones, no one would give a shit.
I mean, people like us would, but the government wouldn't give a shit.
The medical establishment wouldn't give a shit.
It'd just be one statistic and they'd shrug their shoulders and find reasons why.
This is a looming problem.
People are going to die of bad reaction to the vaccine and their deaths are going to be put down to COVID.
Well, look, I think the thing is, as a matter of logic, from a public health point of view, you know a very small percentage of people will have a reaction to a vaccine, right?
It's usually kids because the vaccines are in kids.
But you've computed that in.
And as a matter of logic, it is true.
But if you want 100,000 kids immune from measles, well, then the two kids that get a bad reaction are a price worth paying from a public health point of view.
Obviously, not if you're the kid or you're their family.
I mean, there is a vaccine compensation fund.
Whereas if your child ends up, you know, really badly off, you go and make your case and they look at the evidence and if they think, yes, it was from the vaccine, you get a certain amount of compensation.
That exists.
That's not a scare.
So along with the unfunded public sector pensions and the debt overhang, And the furlough payments and this fund for people who've had a bad reaction to the vaccine.
That's a lot of magic money trees we're going to need.
We're going to need a forest.
The debt is crazy.
It's bigger.
It's, what, two trillion now?
It's bigger than the entire economy.
What's the plan?
But hey, well, I'll tell you what the plan is.
There was a tweet yesterday by I think one of the most, probably one of the most evil people in the world whose name we don't even know.
Have you ever heard of Larry Fink?
No.
Larry Fink is the guy in charge of BlackRock and BlackRock is so heavily involved in the Great Recession World Economic Thought Forum.
Larry Fink has said that decarbonizing the world economy, net zero, is going to cost something like 30 trillion dollars.
A trillion is the new billion.
The human mind can't even conceive of a billion.
They knock off a trillion.
It doesn't count.
And when you think every cent of that trillion is completely wasted, there is no reason to decarbonise the world economy.
Climate change is like COVID.
It's one of those things that charlatan politicians claim to be able to do something about.
They can do absolutely nothing about other than spunk your money up against the wall again and again and again and again.
And that's what's going on.
But these are the kind of people who are participating in the online conference at Davos this week, which nobody is watching, by the way.
Have you noticed this?
If you go on to YouTube, look how many people are looking at these.
No.
I'm not, it's just bollocks.
I thought you were keeping an eye on them.
No, I just look at the numbers.
Yeah, yeah, okay.
So, President Xi of China, who's quite a big deal, you know, quite a big catch for Davos, which shows how they're already in it.
His speech, I checked yesterday, had had 15,000 views.
Well, I mean, you'd have thought that China, being quite a big country, Have they been banned from looking at their president mouthing pabulum for half an hour?
And a lot of the things have got far, far fewer views.
And what worries me about this is not... Toby's line on this is, oh, well, it just shows how inconsequential they are.
No.
What it shows is...
how detached from most people's experiences and needs these Davos people are.
This elite is setting out the agenda and actually enacting it without the say-so or even an understanding of the vast majority of people living in the world who will suffer the consequences of all this.
It's the same with Covid and climate change, they're the same thing.
Governments are doing stuff to deal with this alleged and largely non-existence at massive expense to the taxpayer.
I know, I know.
And we're having no say in it.
Yeah, it is because of these headlines, as you say, and he just doesn't want to go down as the Prime Minister to say, look, you know, it could be bad, but I'm not God.
I cannot stop this.
And instead he said, no, I'm going to do whatever it takes, even if it means destroying the economy, destroying our entire way of life.
I mean, it's just crazy.
And then actually, though, while I No, I mean, the Davos thing, I agree.
It's scary.
And when you cause massive disruption like that, like this, whether it's planned or not planned, people do take advantage of this.
And, you know, as you said, all the billionaires are all the ones that have made, you know, their profits now are through the roof.
And no one seems to care, but it's a small guy.
It's a small news agent down the road.
We must shut him down.
Really, really important that we shut him down.
Otherwise, you know, God knows what might happen.
What they have done is so reckless, as I said, so disproportionate, completely unethical.
It's crazy.
But in terms of going back to the death figures, so, you know, people are asking, why are death figures so high?
Just again, parking the issue that it may not be actually that high.
And oh, Teresa Coffey, right, got in trouble for saying, well, we have an older population.
And of course, the obesity level is much higher here than it is in a lot of other countries, particularly Japan.
So many Lardbots.
I was in Tesco the other night.
I just saw so many of them.
What are you doing in Tesco?
What's wrong with you?
I wasn't.
I was sitting in the car park when my daughter went in there.
For some reason, she prefers going to Tesco.
I don't know why.
I don't like being snobby over at Tesco.
Yeah, they're masked Nazis, by the way.
No, I prefer Aldi.
Aldi's better than Tesco.
Tesco is rough.
Yeah, so the thing is, and then Piers Morgan goes, well, are you blaming the population?
And of course, you know, Teresa Coffey should have said, well, yeah, I mean, I am partly blaming them.
But I tell you who else I'm blaming for this massive obesity crisis is a, I'm afraid it is a lot of the food industry.
And this is where I don't really want a bit of nanny, nanny, nanny stating, you know, pushing all this highly processed, High sugar, garbage down people's, down, you know, just pushing it on them all the time.
But also, partly, I mean, I don't want to say, what is it, a medical industry or the nutritional industry that, of course, basically 40 years ago won the fight versus carbs, versus saturated fats and meat.
Ancel Keys, the evil.
Yeah, yeah.
I tell you what, I tell you what, one of these days.
Yeah.
Yeah, this comes back to the climate change.
It's only going to get worse because you know this new war on meat, right?
We can't eat any more beef.
I totally do.
It's all over beef.
You should be eating meat.
Saturated fats are fine.
Keep drinking your full fat milk.
Keep drinking your eggs.
Dump all your crappy high-sugar, high-carbohydrate cereal.
So they push this carb diet on everybody, right?
To the detriment of, you know, fat, basically, which is perfectly fine, because it keeps you full for much longer, you don't snack as much, and of course, you know, you have to exercise.
So they're the two people, the nutritional stroke medical industry and government, who have pushed this garbage diet on people.
And some people who I actually have more sympathy for people who are over eight than I used to be.
I used to be pretty bad about it because I think if you're surrounded by food, right, it's not like even if you're an alcoholic or a drug addict, you know, you actually have to make effort to go and get those things.
But if you're just love food, right, it's everywhere.
You know, it's just everywhere.
It's so cheap now.
So it's very difficult to, to, you know, you'd have to be so disciplined.
And so what have they done now in the middle of this lockdown?
Closed all the gyms.
None of the kids are having any sports.
Closed all the swimming pools.
So now they're just going to make people fatter, telling them to eat less meat, which is just idiotic.
Unbelievably idiotic.
And so the obesity rate's only going to get higher.
Well done.
Congratulations.
Genius idea.
This is we've got to continue this this this bit because I wanted to talk to you and I've got to go and I've got to take a urine sample of the dogs to the vet.
You imagine that was fun to collect.
Yeah.
So I wanted to do this conversations.
I wanted to talk to you about the big farmer.
Big oil, big food.
Because once you... You should come with me down the rabbit hole one day and you will find lots of bunnies.
And I do not live in Cowslips Warren because that's not a good place to be.
And a lot of people are living in Cowslips Warren, if you're familiar with that analogy.
Anyway, I'll explain another time.
So, good.
Laura, shall I ask the people to get in touch with you about buying your equipment?
Yeah, why not?
Yeah, OK.
Let's do that.
Good.
Well, thank you.
Thank you, everybody.
Keep watching and keep supporting me on Patreon and Subscribestar.
And I'm trying to do this show increasingly on Rumble because... Oh, yeah.
Well, I'm worried about YouTube closing everything down.
I'm worried about... I'm trying to use Twitter less, aren't you?
Well, I think... I'm moving on to Gab.
It's hard.
No, no, I'm not.
No, if I get... No, I can't do another account.
No, I'll just stay with Twitter.
And then if they kick me off... Oh, well, no, I do Gab.
And Gab's good.
And I've also got a Telegram.
A Telegram, the James Dallingpole channel, for my hardcore people.
You want me to send you a Telegram?
I call them my sharklings.
Yeah.
Anyway, I've got to go.
I've got to go to the vet.
You're right on the numbers, James.
You are right.
You're probably right.
Good.
Bye, Laura.
Take it easy.
Bye.
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