en-us https://www.intensedebate.com/users/5397708 Comments by WHS_ https://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2021/02/nick-hoile-this-tide-is-beginning-to-turn-on-covid-ministers-should-act-now-to-prevent-a-winter-flu-crisis.html#IDComment1097634470 "In fact, the number of people suffering from flu fell by more than 95 per cent compared to the previous year. " All this tells me is that the usual flu deaths have occurred as normal, they've just all been rolled up with COVID. Given the normal figure in an British winter is 30,000 flu deaths, I would say knock 30,000 off the supposed total of 110,000 COVID deaths: here are people who have died *with* COVID but have in fact died *of* flu as per a normal winter. Wed, 17 Feb 2021 17:44:01 +0000 https://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2021/02/nick-hoile-this-tide-is-beginning-to-turn-on-covid-ministers-should-act-now-to-prevent-a-winter-flu-crisis.html#IDComment1097634470 https://www.conservativehome.com/thecolumnists/2021/02/iain-dale-why-would-any-sensible-person-even-think-about-booking-a-holiday-abroad.html#IDComment1097501535 "I’ve had letters from the NHS telling me to shield and I’ve obeyed the instructions to the tee." This isn't something to boast about, you know. "Sod my liberties as a free-born Englishman, I slavishly do whatever the government tells me!" Fri, 12 Feb 2021 07:44:11 +0000 https://www.conservativehome.com/thecolumnists/2021/02/iain-dale-why-would-any-sensible-person-even-think-about-booking-a-holiday-abroad.html#IDComment1097501535 https://www.conservativehome.com/international/2021/02/ben-roback-bidens-new-administration-are-you-not-entertained-no-and-dont-expect-to-be.html#IDComment1097473958 Bipartisanship, outreach, unity? By implementing impeachment against a President who has already left office, by having liars like Ocasio-Cortez sniffle and sob about how they were nearly killed (despite being nowhere near the scene of a pathetic squib of a riot), by demonising the half of the country that voted Trump? By implementing a string of executive orders, bypassing Congress, implementing wicked and wrong policies? Unity only on terms that involve the right prostrate in the dust begging the left for forgiveness. Stuff that sort of unity. Thu, 11 Feb 2021 07:59:05 +0000 https://www.conservativehome.com/international/2021/02/ben-roback-bidens-new-administration-are-you-not-entertained-no-and-dont-expect-to-be.html#IDComment1097473958 https://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2021/02/amanda-milling-covid-will-make-mays-local-elections-unusual-but-theyre-happening-and-they-matter-lets-get-ready-for-them-now.html#IDComment1097362680 Instances of fraud are minimal and localised. In return you disfranchise those who can't get out of the house, those on holiday, those called away from their home town at short notice, etc. Sun, 7 Feb 2021 12:51:45 +0000 https://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2021/02/amanda-milling-covid-will-make-mays-local-elections-unusual-but-theyre-happening-and-they-matter-lets-get-ready-for-them-now.html#IDComment1097362680 https://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2021/02/amanda-milling-covid-will-make-mays-local-elections-unusual-but-theyre-happening-and-they-matter-lets-get-ready-for-them-now.html#IDComment1097362642 Why? Why cost the Tory Party millions of postal votes because of some perverse belief that casting a vote at a polling station fulfils a civic duty but casting one by post is not? Sun, 7 Feb 2021 12:48:58 +0000 https://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2021/02/amanda-milling-covid-will-make-mays-local-elections-unusual-but-theyre-happening-and-they-matter-lets-get-ready-for-them-now.html#IDComment1097362642 https://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2021/02/amanda-milling-covid-will-make-mays-local-elections-unusual-but-theyre-happening-and-they-matter-lets-get-ready-for-them-now.html#IDComment1097362568 The instances of postal vote fraud are minimal and localised, whereas take-up of postal votes runs into millions, and they lean disproportionately Tory. Banning postal votes because of a few rotten boroughs would cost the Tories millions of votes. Sun, 7 Feb 2021 12:45:37 +0000 https://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2021/02/amanda-milling-covid-will-make-mays-local-elections-unusual-but-theyre-happening-and-they-matter-lets-get-ready-for-them-now.html#IDComment1097362568 https://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2021/02/amanda-milling-covid-will-make-mays-local-elections-unusual-but-theyre-happening-and-they-matter-lets-get-ready-for-them-now.html#IDComment1097362536 "the general finding is that postal vote takeup is higher on the left than the right" I don't know where you get that from, as it is quite wrong. PV take-up is far higher among Tory-leaning groups: the elderly, homeowners, those going off on foreign holidays, the wealthy. This site carries regular pieces tying postal vote fraud to the left, but that is because all electoral fraud is higher on the left than the right. I suppose those you mention get hot under the collar because they assume increased postal vote = increased fraud, but were we to react by banning postal voting you would lose millions of Tory votes by it. Sun, 7 Feb 2021 12:43:03 +0000 https://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2021/02/amanda-milling-covid-will-make-mays-local-elections-unusual-but-theyre-happening-and-they-matter-lets-get-ready-for-them-now.html#IDComment1097362536 https://www.conservativehome.com/highlights/2021/02/oborne-condemns-johnson-as-a-liar-and-cannot-understand-why-many-voters-believe-the-pm-is-telling-the-truth.html#IDComment1097333867 I suppose like most lefties Oborne would point out, in contradiction to Boris Johnson the "liar", the saint-like truthful figure of Jeremy Corbyn. Here is a man who has never changed his principles; who has said the same things consistently for forty years. Yes, and here is an anti-semite and a man who has spent 40 years cheerleading for terrorists from Ireland to the Middle East. If that is truth in politics, give me a liar every time. Sat, 6 Feb 2021 14:59:13 +0000 https://www.conservativehome.com/highlights/2021/02/oborne-condemns-johnson-as-a-liar-and-cannot-understand-why-many-voters-believe-the-pm-is-telling-the-truth.html#IDComment1097333867 https://www.conservativehome.com/highlights/2021/02/oborne-condemns-johnson-as-a-liar-and-cannot-understand-why-many-voters-believe-the-pm-is-telling-the-truth.html#IDComment1097333704 The answer is: who decides what is a lie, when people nowadays think their subjective opinions are objective facts, and when people think their opponents can't just have different views but must be liars? Sat, 6 Feb 2021 14:49:20 +0000 https://www.conservativehome.com/highlights/2021/02/oborne-condemns-johnson-as-a-liar-and-cannot-understand-why-many-voters-believe-the-pm-is-telling-the-truth.html#IDComment1097333704 https://www.conservativehome.com/highlights/2021/02/oborne-condemns-johnson-as-a-liar-and-cannot-understand-why-many-voters-believe-the-pm-is-telling-the-truth.html#IDComment1097333657 The problem with politics in the 21st Century - and it is a problem mainly on the left, though elements of the right are falling into it also - is the belief that one's own opinions are in fact objective facts. It therefore follows anyone who disagrees with you cannot simply be mistaken, or have a different view: they must be liars. Hence the rise of so many "fact-checking" websites, or "fact-checking" pieces in newspapers, which never used to exist. Newspapers now do not write editorials disagreeing with their political opponents, they "fact-check" them, i.e. they check their opponents' sincere opinions against the newspaper's ideological preference, and find them wanting. I for one do not listen to those who call their political opponents liars unless there is some actual factual statement at issue. And, much as I don't like Boris Johnson, I certainly won't listen to a critique of him from Peter Oborne whose attitude towards Islamism and Islamic terrorism is suspect to say the least. Sat, 6 Feb 2021 14:46:12 +0000 https://www.conservativehome.com/highlights/2021/02/oborne-condemns-johnson-as-a-liar-and-cannot-understand-why-many-voters-believe-the-pm-is-telling-the-truth.html#IDComment1097333657 https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2021/02/obrien-and-his-critics-covid-sceptics-covid-believers-covid-deniers-cool-it.html#IDComment1097302945 I as a lockdown-sceptic, will happily read articles, on here on elsewhere, in support of lockdown measures if they are fair and balanced. I would happily debate lockdown supporters if they debated in good faith. The unpleasant Neil O'Brien does not fall into this camp. The articles he has had here, and his Twitter feed, show a supremely arrogant man who misrepresents his opponents' positions, is happy to tar them with the brush of conspiracy theorist, and pays no attention to arguments that don't suit him (don't try to argue against lockdown with Mr O'Brien on the grounds of freedom, for example. He doesn't care about freedom: "Don't you know there's a crisis on?"). If the sneering bad-faith quasi-fascism of O'Brien is the best the pro-lockdown side can do, I claim immediate (moral) victory for the lockdown-sceptics, regardless of what any opinion poll says. Fri, 5 Feb 2021 13:31:19 +0000 https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2021/02/obrien-and-his-critics-covid-sceptics-covid-believers-covid-deniers-cool-it.html#IDComment1097302945 https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2021/02/obrien-and-his-critics-covid-sceptics-covid-believers-covid-deniers-cool-it.html#IDComment1097302743 I see you (along with 90% of our population) have simply jettisoned the idea of freedom in this 'crisis'. To believe in preserving freedoms as more important than life is to be "an ideologue" and "mad"; to believe that preserving our freedoms is more important than the tiny tiny risk of COVID poses to most of us under 65 is still to be a mad ideologue. What loony nutters we must be to think the Government doesn't have the right to lock us in our homes, and to think that even applies when the Government cries "But it's an emergency!" It is sort of funny given all this demonising of those who think freedom is even more important than fighting COVID is happening under a Prime Minister who, as a journalist, used to be very fond of exalting the natural, hard-won, rights of freeborn Englishmen, etc. Fri, 5 Feb 2021 13:23:59 +0000 https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2021/02/obrien-and-his-critics-covid-sceptics-covid-believers-covid-deniers-cool-it.html#IDComment1097302743 https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2021/02/obrien-and-his-critics-covid-sceptics-covid-believers-covid-deniers-cool-it.html#IDComment1097302645 What other sort of society is it, where the Government bans you from leaving your home except for set purposes, and where the police do indeed congregate at known pleasure spots and places of natural beauty, and question dog-walkers and the like as to why they've come there and where they live, and issue fines if the answer isn't to their liking? Fri, 5 Feb 2021 13:18:42 +0000 https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2021/02/obrien-and-his-critics-covid-sceptics-covid-believers-covid-deniers-cool-it.html#IDComment1097302645 https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2021/02/obrien-and-his-critics-covid-sceptics-covid-believers-covid-deniers-cool-it.html#IDComment1097302582 If as a society we accepted old people are supposed to pass away at some time, and not expect them to live forever which is the modern attitude, we might get somewhere. At the moment we ("we" being both the NHS, and "we" our locked-down society with its shattered economy) are battling to keep Granny safe from COVID, in order that she might instead die in 6 months time of flu, or dementia, or a heart attack. Fri, 5 Feb 2021 13:16:04 +0000 https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2021/02/obrien-and-his-critics-covid-sceptics-covid-believers-covid-deniers-cool-it.html#IDComment1097302582 https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2021/02/obrien-and-his-critics-covid-sceptics-covid-believers-covid-deniers-cool-it.html#IDComment1097302525 *You* show evidence to support *your* case, you are the one supporting the erosion of our freedoms without evidence it works or is justified. Fri, 5 Feb 2021 13:11:15 +0000 https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2021/02/obrien-and-his-critics-covid-sceptics-covid-believers-covid-deniers-cool-it.html#IDComment1097302525 https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2021/02/obrien-and-his-critics-covid-sceptics-covid-believers-covid-deniers-cool-it.html#IDComment1097302466 As Mr Goodman's article points out, the anti lockdown or "no restrictions" argument has only been lost in the feckless 'Court of Public Opinion'. In the Court of Facts and Reality, even a fool can see lockdown has cost more lives than it has saved, even putting aside the terrible economic damage it has caused. And as a poster below rightly points out, the 'Court of Public Opinion' has only swung the way it has through an intense campaign of fear mongering on the part of both Government and press. Fri, 5 Feb 2021 13:08:36 +0000 https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2021/02/obrien-and-his-critics-covid-sceptics-covid-believers-covid-deniers-cool-it.html#IDComment1097302466 https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2021/02/obrien-and-his-critics-covid-sceptics-covid-believers-covid-deniers-cool-it.html#IDComment1097302438 Anyone who made a serious attempt to separate out those who died of COVID from those who died "with COVID". The ONS figures merely collate anyone who died within 28 days of having a positive test result. Fri, 5 Feb 2021 13:06:23 +0000 https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2021/02/obrien-and-his-critics-covid-sceptics-covid-believers-covid-deniers-cool-it.html#IDComment1097302438 https://www.conservativehome.com/thecolumnists/2021/02/james-frayne-a-clear-majority-of-people-think-the-police-do-a-good-job-but-want-them-to-be-tougher-enforcing-lockdown.html#IDComment1097205698 More voodoo polling which shows an equivalent of "the shy Tory factor" in spades, i.e. most people hate lockdown, most people break the lockdown rules in their own common sense ways which harm nobody, but because we've been bombarded for a year with propaganda telling us breaking lockdown in any way will kill Granny, no-one dares to tell a pollster they oppose lockdown. The people saying they want lockdown enforced more rigorously by the police would soon complain (rightly) if they were pulled over whilst driving to the supermarket, or fined for walking their dog. Tue, 2 Feb 2021 10:44:54 +0000 https://www.conservativehome.com/thecolumnists/2021/02/james-frayne-a-clear-majority-of-people-think-the-police-do-a-good-job-but-want-them-to-be-tougher-enforcing-lockdown.html#IDComment1097205698 https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2021/02/our-survey-conservative-activists-back-the-labour-party.html#IDComment1097205509 The Conservatives are the opposition at Holyrood with more seats than Labour, and as far as I know are still polling ahead of Labour in Scotland. So why the need to ask Tories to support Labour? Surely Labour should back us! And why the fawning profile of Anas Sarwar last week? Has ConHome got some agenda? Tue, 2 Feb 2021 10:37:26 +0000 https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2021/02/our-survey-conservative-activists-back-the-labour-party.html#IDComment1097205509 https://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2021/01/john-redwood-lets-hear-more-debate-about-how-the-church-of-england-enjoys-its-privileges.html#IDComment1097151093 If the EU had indeed bought up all the vaccine to give to the Third World, John Redwood would be complaining the European poor were neglected. Sun, 31 Jan 2021 11:34:31 +0000 https://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2021/01/john-redwood-lets-hear-more-debate-about-how-the-church-of-england-enjoys-its-privileges.html#IDComment1097151093