At this time of year I’ve often used this column to reflect on doom-laden prophesies about what to expect in the year ahead. After all, It’s that magnificent time when we can wallow in the short dark days and add to the gloom with blood-curdling predictions of disasters.
  A couple of weeks ago, notwithstanding that we are still wrestling with our current pandemic, Dr Jenny Harries, the head of our UK Health Security Agency  -what Stalinist mind thought up that nomenclature? – warned us that the next pandemic could be much worse.
Well, she could be right, but equally she could be spectacularly wrong: There is no scientific basis for her supposition. Whether her speculations were designed to be helpful, or simply to terrify us, is a matter for conjecture, but a number of people have been suggesting -from the outset- that our fears of the current pandemic were overblown. Personally, I was well ahead of Dr Harries: right at the start, I warned in the Commons that one day there may be a disease that will threaten our very survival; but that Covid certainly isn’t it – and that future generations will wonder at our collective acts of self-harm in our response to it.

For those of us who wallow in predictions of the dreadful prospects that the future holds, I recommend my favourite book of all time: The Coffee Table Book of Doom, which was published a few years ago by Art Lester and Steven Appleby. Here is a flavour from the advertising blurb:
“…with the apocalypse at hand, don’t fret about dying uninformed. The Coffee Table Book of Doom is a revelatory, brilliantly funny, superbly illustrated and erudite compendium of all the 27 doom-laden horsemen we need to worry about – personal doom, gender erosion, asteroid impact, pandemics, super storms, sexual ruin – and much more besides.”

I can’t speak for all 27 doom laden horsemen but surely we’ve had enough of pandemics and aren’t tired of the continued interference in our enterprises, personal choices, and our way of life from politicians who believe that they are best placed to make decisions on our behalf, rather that treating us as adults capable of assessing risks and acting sensibly?

 Anyway, there is still plenty to worry about: there is a volcano under a lake near Naples rumbling away and if it blows it will make Vesuvius look like a camp fire. The lava lake under Yellowstone Park could go at any moment, taking most of the USA with it…but then the volcanic cloud it might darken the skies, cool the planet and save us from climate change. Alternatively, it might reduce harvests to the extent that we all starve….

Every generation since we were expelled from the Garden of Eden has speculated that it might be the last, but we’re still here.

I recall some common sense from the Government’s Chief scientific officer, who said earlier this year that “we have to learn to live with Covid”. Well, whatever happened to that? 

The Government continues to be in thrall to scientific modellers with doomsday predictions.
The value of the output from any model -however robust its design- depends upon the assumptions that are fed into it. Some of the terrifying numbers from the modelling that we have seen in the last few days are the result of assumptions that take no account of the data that is coming out of South Africa -that the new variant, despite being more infectious, appears to be milder and consequent hospitalisations fewer and shorter. Many of the alarming numbers aren’t even the output of models at all, they are mere extrapolations: assuming that what has happened, will go on happening at the same rate, irrespective of experience that things rarely do so.

As I said in the Commons at the beginning of last week, this is all part of a ‘Ministry of Fear’ designed to ensure our compliance with instructions that compromise fundamental liberties, and indeed, condition us to demand even greater restraints on that liberty, so overawed are we by the present danger.

Part of this work of terrorising the population is undertaken with enthusiasm by the broadcast media, a job made so much easier by the twenty four hour news cycle which enables us to constantly receive the same bad news throughout the day from the moment that we wake up in the morning, hearing on the radio that we’d die horribly drowning in our own phlegm, repeated until the moment we go to bed.
What is astounding is that, as each new prediction is trotted out, no account is taken of the previous record of the source. Let’s take, for example, one of the media’s favourite modellers, Professor Neil Ferguson of Imperial College London.
In 2001, Professor Ferguson predicted 150,000 human deaths from foot-and-mouth; but under 200 died. In 2002, he predicted up to 50,000 deaths from BSE; in the end, 177 died. In 2005, he said that 150 million people could be killed by bird flu; 282 died. In 2009, a Government estimate based on his advice said that a “reasonable worst-case scenario” for swine flu would lead to 65,000 British deaths; in the end, 457 people died. He predicted 85,000 Covid deaths in Sweden consequent on their policy of avoiding lockdown; in fact, 6,000 Swedes have died. In July this year he predicted that 100,000 daily cases was almost inevitable following our release from restrictions. It just didn’t happen.
Yet the broadcasters will quote the latest models as if they were the Gospel truth.

My prejudice is that the latest scare won’t be anything like as bad forecast. We look to ministers to resist the measures being urged upon them which will damage society and the economy, but then, on the basis of past performance that expectation looks pretty shaky too. 

Any number of constituents have demanded my opinion on Downing Street parties. Well, as I wasn’t there, it seems reasonable to await the findings of the Cabinet Secretary, rather than rely on the assumptions of screaming headlines.  Where many of my correspondents are plain wrong however, is the conclusion they have jumped to in taking the view that the PM couldn’t not have known that a party was taking place in his house: Number 10 Downing Street isn’t a house, it is just a front door which gives access to a large suite of open plan offices and meeting rooms on three floors stretching all the way to the Cabinet Office and largely populated by career civil servants. The PM’s flat is in the rafters above Number 11 Downing Street. Having been in the flat a number of times under a former regime, I can attest that, once inside, it is perfectly possible not to have any idea of what is happening behind the front door of Number 10.

Given that everything in Government leaks, I am very suspicious that it has taken a year for the story to surface, but I’ll wait on the outcome of the investigation.

 

Having asked the Secretary of State on Monday 6^th December how many positive cases with the new variant were actually ill – to which the answer appeared to be ‘none’ – I was devastated by the absurd decision to implement ‘plan B’ only three days later. Of course, some patients with the new variant will end up in hospital. I will be disappointed, but I hope that the numbers are limited. I almost get the impression however, that some crazed control freaks will welcome hospitalisations as the opportunity to impose an even more restrictive measures on our lives.

 

Notwithstanding my opposition to the restrictions that have been imposed upon us, there are two bright spots. First, the requirement to isolate after contact with the new variant which was announced on Monday, has already been revoked  and replaced only by the need to take tests. So, at least we are spared another ‘pingdemic’.

Second, constituents have complained about the absurdity of requiring them to work from home, yet allowing social gatherings and parties to proceed unhindered. My response: Don’t complain about small mercies and don’t look a gift horse in the mouth! However absurd, enjoy the opportunities that we still have: Give the hospitality industry a boost – go out, eat out, there is plenty of capacity given the cancellations that have already started to happen.

 

Constituents often write to me to complain that our fundamental liberty of freedom of speech no longer endures. I don’t believe this perception is down to the statutory provisions that we have made in recent years to protect minorities. In fact these do no more in principle than the ancient common law prohibition against occasioning a breach of the peace: incitement has always been unlawful.
Rather, I put it down largely to the caustic nature of contemporary public discourse. Such is the fury with which unfashionable opinions are greeted, that those that hold them are terrified to express them. We appear to have lost the ability to disagree just because we believe that our opponents are wrong, now we need to denounce them as wicked as well.
Over the last couple of years a large number of academics, clinicians, and civil servants have contacted me to draw attention to concerns that they have about public policy within their areas of expertise. They have included professors and senior people at the very top of their professions. What has been remarkable is the extent to which they wish to remain anonymous. They believe that there is something serious that needs to be out in the public debate, but they are not willing to put their heads above the parapet and say it themselves. They fear the hostile reaction from their own colleagues and fellow professionals. They believe that they have lost their voice, but as a parliamentarian, I still have a voice, so they put their trust in me to give voice to their concerns.

Well, the fundamental guarantee that I do have an unrestrained voice is set out in the one written part of our largely unwritten constitution: The Bill of Rights 1689. 

“that freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached in any court or place out of Parliament”
So, my privilege is that I cannot be taken to task for anything that I say in Parliament, this the fundamental guarantee of the rights of a free parliament…until now at any rate.

A new edition of the code of conduct for MPs has been published for consultation. It recommends that the scope of the Commissioner for Standards be extended to what takes place in the Commons, its division lobbies and in its parliamentary committees.  This will give a policing function over elected members to an official in a clear breach of the guarantee set down in the Bill of Rights.
This is compounded by the addition of a new principle of ‘respect’  to be added to the standards, which will require MPs to “demonstrate anti-discriminatory behaviours“ through the promotion of “inclusion and diversity” amongst others.
It may sound anodyne enough but it was differing interpretations of inclusion and diversity that has just driven a professor from her job at Sussex University. I have no doubt that this would have a further chilling effect on free speech, and it is a fundamental attack on democratic choice.