Thread by @sundersays

Tonight, @MaajidNawaz & @simondolan are among 10 signatories on an open letter to the FBI and M15: it alleges lockdown policies result from a global plot by the Chinese Communists, alleging malpractice & corruption by WHO, Imperial College, western govts & many others

I am not sharing this letter for many reasons. I would advise others *not* to do so
* Authors not scientific experts at all (eg Nawaz, Dolan
* Its tone is lurid & unbalanced
* Can't judge all the content, but would anticipate people & institutions may consider it defamatory

My strong advice would be to *not* share the letter without legal advice, given its many v.serious allegations about such a wide range of targets. If responsible media outlets report on its existence, claims or criticisms in response they will take legal advice before publishing

If there are reports about this extraordinary missive in responsible national media outlets (eg BBC, Sky or national newspapers), there would be less risk in sharing things that will have been legalled. Media might scrutinise this letter's credentials,or see it as better ignored.

I do not recognise all these names & welcome insights. (I've seen enough from Mr Nawaz and Mr Dolan not to share their work without checks from reputable sources).

But others do see it differently view. Toby Young has shared it with 150k people - describing it as "excellent"

I am surprised that this letter to the FBI and MI5 and various other intelligence agencies was not also addressed to The Queen and the Pope.

When I was General Secretary of the Fabians, I would occasionally be cc'd into round-robin missives addressed to that kind of global group

A more serious note: some people may share this because they agree with it. Other people may share it to highlight they believe it to be wrong, mad or dangerous.

Please caution ordinary social media users from doing the latter: text may be seriously defamatory. + Why spread it?

These worrying times are bringing out the best in some of you

https://twitter.com/nathansldennis/status/1348416058290483201

How odd to see such contentious, conspiratorial material published just 2 days since @maajidnawaz claimed he could take legal action against people expressing the honest opinion he is "a self-publicising shock jock promoting dangerous conspiracy theories".

https://twitter.com/sundersays/status/1347585087559315457

Michael P Senger appears to be a tax attorney in the Greater Atlanta area, having studied accountancy and tax law: "Covid lockdowns aren't science; they're CCP propaganda" is his Twitter handle. Mr Nawaz was a fan of his writing about how we all fell for China's plot.

Letter signatory Brian O'Shea is a private detective, libertarian & amateur photographer. That combo explains this rather fine profile pic. (Is it just me, or does his look have something of JK Rowling's hero Cormoran Strike about him?). "Investigate everything" is his motto.

In response to those doubting the quality of work here, Mr Nawaz notes that the "thorough citations are also *fully* footnoted". (Rather than using settling for some non-footnote based method of citations, I guess; perhaps endnotes)

Simon Dolan is a businessman, leasing planes to airlines & other things. The Sunday Times Rich List estimated his wealth at £200 million. He lives in Monaco, so lockdown meant he couldn't attend protests in Britain. He lost court cases arguing govt didn't have power to lockdown.

The Court found that the Secretary of State did have the powers to pass the regulations, that the policy judgments and law were matters for government and parliament, not the courts; while some of the human rights complaints were not properly arguable.

Orwell may have appreciated some quasi-editorial criticism in the Dolan judgement.

Excess length & prolixity "serve to conceal rather than illluminate the case being made".

87 pages & all the footnotes you can eat are not *always* an unmitigated good!

judiciary.uk/wp-content/upl…

Simon Dolan was Executive Producer (co-producer with David Icke) of Icke's 2019 film "Renegade". It is a biographic profile about how Icke 'has been proved right again and again and again'. Icke exclusively premiered Dolan's Dec 2020 film promoting Sweden's Covid success

Naomi Wolf has notes that my thread is asking people NOT to share what she thinks an "excellent and powerful" letter. She has made it her pinned tweet & is promoting to her 75k followers. (And so that choice, dear followers, is yours).

I have not advised any of you *not* to read it. You can decide that for yourselves. (I do feel that many of you might well have the critical thinking skills to come out the other side OK if you did personally choose to engage with it).

https://twitter.com/sundersays/status/1348454340588138497

I didn't understand this theory, as per my reply, but share it with the rest of you in case I am missing the point

https://twitter.com/count_01/status/1348454415284523010

Expertise: Don't risk it

https://twitter.com/StevePeers/status/1348460304284442626

There is certainly some spoof potential here

https://twitter.com/redikki/status/1348466399770005507

Stacey Rudin is an Attorney, member of American Institute of Economic Research & an anti-lockdown activist. She denies that there is any Covid pandemic, and compares lockdown sceptics to the abolitionists who ended slavery.
aier.org/staffs/stacey-…

Covid does not even come close to reaching pandemic status, she has said.

Stacey Rudin promotes a lot of conspiracy theories. Dr Thomas Binder is a source that she and Maajid Nawaz have both promoted, despite his advocacy of a full set of extreme conspiracies: Covid denial, Zionist plots, Bill Gates controlling the world, etc.

This is not at all a marginal aspect of Binder's social media output but a central theme of his Covid denial. Sharing Binder's content involves potential support of this, or at best indifference, or negligence in failing to do any due diligence.

Mr Senger is a tax attorney in the Greater Atlanta area. I would advise followers *not* to take his assurance that nobody could be sued for just sharing his letter as a guarantee. It suggests he does not know UK libel law,where you could certainly get sued

https://twitter.com/MichaelPSenger/status/1348501742346854403?s=19

Of the 10 authors Clare Craig, a pathologist, does appear to have much more relevant professional credentials on science than at least 8 or 9 of the others. She has made been making an argument about False Positive Rates (which has been a contested/contentious issue)

Lockdown Sceptics newsletter notes the FBI among others will now be in receipt of this letter!

Toby Young finds its evidence "impressive", though he simply cuts and pastes chunks, with no attempt at analysis, beyond "if you are in the FBI, this is very much reading in full"

Senger concludes his 206 tweet thread by quote-tweeting Stacey Rudin's tweeted extract from Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf. Both appear to see Hitler's 1925 account of the appeal of "the big lie" as the perfect summary and explanation of this so-called Covid pandemic of 2020.

I can't recall seeing Adolf Hitler quoted as a source of insight in this way. (Normally, if quoted at all, it would be to illustrate the evils of Nazism). Here the Hitler quote seems intended to illuminate the conclusion and central thesis of what the open letter claims happened.

Of course, this Adolf Hitler quote shows how extreme propagandists use accusations about the propaganda of others to promote their global conspiracy narratives. (It seems to me odd to quote Mein Kampf as a source of insights into propaganda, rather than as an example of it).

This Conspiracy Letter just got much worse

https://twitter.com/sundersays/status/1348541074390835202?s=19

A BT Sport presenter Jeff Brazer telling 470k followers to read this if there is one thing they do today is alarming, given the crazy conspiratorial content and the positions & associations of several of its authors

https://twitter.com/JeffBrazier/status/1348563538411991040?s=19

Jeff Brazier. He is resistant to people suggesting it's an extreme and defamatory conspiracy. I wonder which peers of his might be able to get him to consider the dangers.

Jeff Brazier did delete his tweet of the Covid China conspiracy letter, which is good to see, after he had engaged civilly with me and several other people suggesting it could be dangerous & defamatory. As he said, few of us are experts in these topics

https://twitter.com/JeffBrazier/status/1348594333520433153?s=19

Credit to @lulichill

https://twitter.com/lulichill/status/1348597704956518401?s=19

Mr Maajid Nawaz responds to the, err, mixed reception of the China conspiracy letter with a metaphor of lice coming out of the woodworks.

Shall we try to decode it?
* Critics are dehumanised as an infestation of parasites;
* the whole structure is rotten
(Ripe for Revolution?)

Maajid Nawaz has deleted his Tweet about the lice coming out of woodwork, perhaps due to this criticism of it as a dehumanising trope.

https://twitter.com/stuart_audstu/status/1348658391703576576?s=19

Correction: Maajid Nawaz did not delete this tweet about the lice showing the wood was rotten

https://twitter.com/GrumpyOW/status/1348686877549883392?s=19

This is v serious. Isn't this what radicalisation looks like? Replies to the message about the infestation include "uncovering the snakes and scorpions among us", an Insurrection Act being passed, something "Biblical" happening in days. Heightened anxiety & excitement

Sanjeev Sabhlok, Pope, Church of Reason & Liberty is coauthor. A would-be Indian politician in exile + citizen/resident of Australia. Resigned as Victoria Govt economist to petition ICC to indict the 'police state' on lockdown as a Crime Against Humanity
sabhlokcity.com/who-am-i/

Sabhlok believes
* we are at war with China
* No pandemic, just a flu. Media created panic for £
* lockdown 'greatest ever crime against humanity'.
* Victoria is Nazi police state
* Trump won, Biden stole the election
* Vaccine sceptic (but over 75s might consider them)

"wAkE uP!"
* mankind was strongly immune to any new virus (2013 claim of Gupta, shared in Dec 2020)
* its "not clear whether the vaccine is even relevant to the objective of reducing deaths"

He has strongly anti-Muslim prejudices, writing that "I don't care if Muslims kill each other off" as he has "nothing but contempt for all Middle Eastern nations".

Thanks @TomNwainwright

https://twitter.com/TomNwainwright/status/1348420674185015298?s=19

We are at war with China & Bill Gates, he says.

One I hadn't heard before is that Boris Johnson adopted herd immunity but Chinese Twitter Bots created crucial pressure to shift the policy to lockdown. (The key to the open letter is China drives all policy choices)