Distrust

My distrust of governments grew slowly over the decades of my life.  Perhaps that is true of most people who distrust their governments, and explains, at least in part, the differences in political outlook between the older and the younger populations.

When I drove to and from work each day, I usually listened to radio 4; the Today Programme going out, and PM in the evening.  I concluded that although it is rare for a government spokesman (GS) to be caught in an outright lie, they have been known to mislead with the truth.   A few examples will be sufficient.

There was a BSE crisis, and the government put some effort into calming the fears of the populace, while at the same time taking the side of the farmers.  Prominent people were seen feeding hamburgers to their children.  A GS came on the radio and claimed that there was "No conceivable risk" to people from eating beef.  When it transpired that there was, in fact, a risk of maternal transmission from cow to calf, and a risk of BSE in humans, the GS was asked if he regretted what he said.  What he regretted, he said, is that people took "no conceivable risk" to mean "no risk".

There was a time when the benefit system in the UK was being revamped.  At the time, child benefit, I think it was called, was delivered, in cash, through the post office by personal application.  There was concern that this help, modest though it was, that was delivered directly to the person who would spend it, would be reduced.  A GS came on the radio and said the the benefit would be paid "in the same way as before", to the relief of most people.   When the amount was, in fact reduced as everyone had feared, the GS pointed out that what he said simply meant that the benefit would continue to be paid in cash through the post office.

Hussein was said to possess "weapons of mass destruction".   This claim was amplified over a few weeks into the claim that Iraq could mount a nuclear attack on Britain within 15 minutes.  There was a nagging doubt in my mind, because such intelligence is gathered over years and not weeks, but we went to war anyway, and there they all were.....not.  My personal opinion of  Mr Campbell and Mr Blair is not publishable in a family-friendly blog.

Other examples include the use of phrases like "There is no scientific proof that.....".   This is a weak claim because scientific proof of a conjecture is very difficult to obtain.  For many years it was know to anyone with a couple of brain cells to fire together, that smoking increases the risk of lung cancer.  The fact that scientific proof of this is difficult to obtain, is why the tobacco companies got away with it for so long.   That there is no scientific proof of a claim is a very weak statement, and if it comes from a GS, then in my view, the claim is likely to be true.

A much stronger statement sometimes made by a GS is that "there is no evidence to support the claim..."  The slightest evidence to the contrary refutes this, and at one time it was claimed that the British railway system was the worst in Europe.  A GS came on the radio and said that there was no evidence to support this claim.  One of the rare occasions when the lie is clear.  The fact that Eurostar had to run more slowly in England than in France (due to the quality of the rail system) was evidence that supported the claim.

As a result of these and other examples, I have learnt to ask myself a few questions of  anything said by a GS or, indeed anyone in the news:

1) What did he say?

2) What did he not say?

3) What did he want me to conclude?

4) What do I actually conclude?

5) Did he use any qualifying adjectives and what changes if you remove them?

6) What is he hiding?

Moving on to the 19th of covid.   A nasty disease that I really don't want to catch, thank you very much.  In the early days of this illness, doctors noted that in the SARS outbreak of 2005, hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) was found to be helpful, when combined with zinc and an antibiotic.  So they tried it on the n-n-19, the virus for which is called SARS-Cov 2 (note the similarity).   Glory be!  It works!  We have a cheap and safe means of reducing the death toll by at least 50% !  Let's roll it out!  

Not so fast, friend.  Hold your horses, there's mucho money to be made and populations to be scared witless and controlled.  This could all come in really handy in the upcoming financial crisis.  You're going to have to generate some real scientific proof that it works, with carefully controlled double-blind trials of thousands of patients, before we're going to let you prescribe it.   Meanwhile we're going to ban it.  Oh and by the way, our stock got stolen so we don't have any anyway (France).

And at the same time we're going to publicise fake trials run by people with connections to big pharma, to persuade you that HCQ doesn't work.   After all, we know well that a lie can go twice around the world before the truth has got its boots on.

Ivermectin too has recently been found to be effective both as a prophylactic and cure for the disease in the early stages.  Time to roll out the propaganda again.

And meanwhile we seem to have found a miracle cure for heart disease, cancer and 'flu since hardly anyone appears to be dying of these.

I know when I'm being propagandised (is that a word?) and now is one such time.   I don't doubt that the cov is a nasty disease, and I don't want to catch it.   But our beloved leaders have something else in mind, other than our protection from it.  A book I once read a long time ago suggested that one should ask oneself  in any negotiation situation "Why is this lying bastard lying to me?".  Perhaps that's not bad advice for right now.