Is There Anything More 'Anti Science' Than The Left, Polly?

That number will stay fixed for ever in public memory: 23,000 people died because Boris Johnson resisted locking the country down in time.

How many of those woulfd have died of 'normal' flu anyway, Polly? Will we ever know?  

But this is not just about one narcissistic politician. It’s about his entire rightwing coterie of libertarians and their lethally dominant creed in the UK media.

Ah, yes, the 'vast rightwing conspiracy again'... 

They have a long history of rejecting things that save lives – seatbelts, speed limits, smoking restrictions, sugar taxes, vaccination, benefits, sewers, clean air, the NHS itself and, of course, stopping climate breakdown.

Some of those lives being saved there are those of the people indulging in risky behaviour, which isn't quite such a noble endeavour as you make out, Polly, is it? 

Recall that during the 1980s and 1990s, the Sunday Times under the editorship of Andrew Neil promoted the strangest gay plague theory, publishing pieces suggesting that Aids wasn’t caused by HIV, and that it was almost impossible for heterosexual people to contract it.

It was. It was strictly a gay disease at first, and targetting the people most at risk, and not everyone, was percieved medical wisdom at the time. 

That anti-science tradition is alive and well today. Lockdowns are the quintessence of everything rightwing science-sceptics abhor: what misfortune that a tribe least equipped to cope was in power during the pandemic. In the circumstances, the interventions from those in charge were “too little, too late”. Hard to imagine, but Covid in the UK could have been even more deadly, had unavoidable facts about the pandemic not eventually overwhelmed their fact-free ideologies.

Could have been even more deadly for whom? The people who were never at risk from it, and who now see their children's education ruined, their country's economy trashed, and are about to see a thick token who would be out of his depth as a parking attendant in Islington but is somehow elevated to the status of a British Cabinet member use it as a lever to wreck our justice system even further? 

Sweden is the country constantly quoted by the right, as it relied entirely on a voluntary advisory approach, never compulsory lockdowns. In terms of deaths per capita, many fewer Swedes died than Britons: case proven? Hallett trounced? Alas, we are not Sweden in social structure, national wealth, vulnerable deprivation, health or social care, mainly due to the longterm malign influence of the right fighting tooth and claw against Swedish-style social democracy.

Funny the 'Guardian' never remembers that when it's praising Sweden for something or trying to suggest we need to be more Swedish.  

The precautionary principle, putting safety first when the science is uncertain, is as alien to these ideologues as risk registers.

And to those supporting the trans agenda and demanding chemical sterilisation for mentally ill children, Polly. Frankly, you don't get more 'anti science' than that!