On Tuesday 20th October the following brief exchange took place in the Commons
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
What estimate has the Secretary of State made of the number of excess deaths above the long-term average in each of the last few weeks?
Secretary of State for Health & Social Care
We have, thankfully, seen that the number of excess deaths is around the level of the long-term average. I want to keep it that way and that is why we are taking the action that we are, so that this does not get out of hand like we saw in the first peak.
Now, I didn’t just ask the question at random. I had already looked at the statistics that are publicly available and which show that the number of daily deaths at 1600 or so daily, is normal -and has been at the normal expected level since June.
The Secretary of State’s reply reveals his good intention, to avoid calamity.
The action that he is taking however, brings on another set of calamities in terms of ruined businesses, unemployment, consequent mental health problems, and yes, even deaths. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: the proven result of lock-downs, is that they make poor people poorer.
My intention in asking that question was attempt to expose the fundamental contradiction between fact and what ministers, guided by the scientists who advise them, are telling us.
They claim that a deadly pandemic is stalking the land. Yet the fact is that the number of deaths is consistent with the long-term average. Both these statements cannot be true, they are mutually exclusive. If a deadly pandemic is in progress then the number of excess deaths above the long term average would bear witness to it. They don’t.
I conclude that the pandemic ended in the summer and that the increase in cases arises from the testing of healthy people on an industrial scale, using a methodology that throws-up false positives. I will not be persuaded that a deadly pandemic is again in progress until it reveals itself in excess deaths (and that those excess deaths genuinely arise from the virus and not from other untreated conditions).
A very small number of correspondents have written to me to say that I have no right to make such a judgement because I am not a doctor or a scientist.
On the contrary, a huge number of scientists and doctors have contacted me to say that they agree with me.
I am a rational person trying to reconcile what we are being told about the virus, as against the plain facts revealed in the statistics.
Accordingly, it is proper to demand an explanation as to why measures are being inflicted upon us which intrude into our personal liberty and are deeply damaging to us economically.
In the Commons I pointed out that it is precisely because the Government’s actions defy rational explanation, that constituents write to me with increasingly bizarre conspiracy theories of their own.
Here I draw a blank. However irrational their policy, I am at a loss to explain what motive ministers might have for pursuing it, other than that they genuinely believe it to be right.
Qui bono?
What other motive could they possibly have?