It is vital for @Peston to reveal who was his senior Downing St source that told him UK strategy was “allowing #COVID19 to spread through the population”

These were the identical words @BorisJohnson used in his #TakeItOnTheChin interview

It is in the public interest we know.
Every virologist will tell you that herd immunity without a vaccine is - by definition - not a preventative measure

The govt knew this

The No.10 press office has never attempted to correct @Peston’s story & yet govt ministers claim that #HerdImmunity was never their “strategy”!
Contrast No.10’s reaction to the @Peston story with their reaction to the @thetimes story that #Cummings had said the govt strategy was #HerdImmunity “& if that means some pensioners die, too bad”

They claimed it was “a defamatory fabrication”

No action for defamation was taken
Anonymous sources are an essential part of journalism

It’s a crucial means by which scandals are exposed & the powerful held to account

For govts to abuse the practice by revealing potentially unpopular policies via friendly journalists & then denying the policy = unacceptable!
Surely a senior govt source who plants a story that the govt then tries to deny, loses their right to anonymity

In addition, the huge death toll resulting from the #HerdImmunityScandal means that finding out the full truth - in all its ugliness - is hugely in the public interest
Do we have to wait until @Peston writes a book about #COVID19 to find out for sure who briefed him on #HerdImmunity

Some say “it will all come out in the Inquiry”

Really?

In 2024?

“Mistakes were made, lessons will be leaned”?

Memory loss is already affecting the key players
Do @itvnews & @spectator know the identity of the source?

Journalists should ask

They should also challenge ministers who claim they didn’t know about asymptomatic spread or where behavioural fatigue came

They should ask about #Palantir & #GenomeUK & the #HerdImmunityScandal.
On 13/3/20, a day after @Peston’s article, @Telegraph ran a piece headlined: “Those questioning the govt’s #COVID19 strategy are not only wrong, they’re a danger to us all”

In reality, the failure to properly question govt strategy & misleading science, was what proved dangerous
“There was a fear in every newsroom. A fear of losing your job...the fear of being labelled unpatriotic." Dan Rather on Iraq

At times of national crisis, it is vital that misleading info isn't disseminated

But scrutinizing govt action remains essential.

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More from @StefSimanowitz

1 Apr
“I am definitely released. Solidarity will no longer be a crime!”

French farmer, @CedricHerrou, who offered food & shelter to asylum seekers, has been released

The court also quashed of the judgment condemning
@LoanTorondel for an ironic tweet on police practices in Calais. ImageImage
The recognition by one of France's highest courts that #SolidarityIsNotACrime is good, but across Europe & around the world, people are being arrested & criminalized for providing food, shelter, transport & basic acts of kindness to migrants & refugees. newsweek.com/you-can-now-go…
In 2016, I was in Calais as the bulldozers rolled into the Jungle

Five years on, brave humanitarian volunteers - from the Med to the Alps to the Arizona desert - show that camps can be demolished & tents torn down, but solidarity isn't so easily destroyed
Read 5 tweets
31 Mar
“This is a report produced by a govt that would rather belittle the realities of institutional racism in this country than take steps to address it”

Truth bombs being dropped by @RunnymedeTrust’s
@kapoor_alba to @CliveMyrieBBC @bbc5live re #RacismReport
“The problem has been diagnosed, it has been given a name: it’s called institutional racism.”

More truth bombs on the #RacismReport, this time from
@BellRibeiroAddy

She tells @katierazz on #Newsnight “the denial of its existence is a complete whitewash”
This report into institutional racism - run by Tony Sewell who, 15 years ago, said he doesn't believe in #institutionalracism was designed to demoralise

Don’t be demoralised

These are their tactics

Tactics designed to get you to switch off the news & apply for an allotment. Image
Read 11 tweets
30 Mar
Blistering introductory monologue by @maitlis on standards in public life covering the #AcuriAffair #BorisJohnson #DavidCameron & #PritiPatel

The last time #Newsnight did such a
powerful opening was in May in the midst of the Barnard Castle scandal
“A great journalist puts into words the things people feel. They seek truth & speak truth & are never seduced by the gilded strumpet of power”
(E. Warner)

Following her monologue on Cummings, the govt complained to the BBC

Instead of backing @maitlis, the BBC issued an apology!
“What is spectacularly gutless is that these ministers have avoided @GMB , @Channel4News, @BBCNewsnight & anywhere they might get rough ride. That’s a dereliction of their duty as govt ministers. It’s completely shameful.” @piersmorgan

It’s a national scandal & nothing is done!
Read 9 tweets
29 Mar
1/. This week we bid goodbye to two human rights heroes

Ystdy, we learned of the sudden death of Prof Christof Heyns (62), a giant of intnl human rights law

Last weekend, Nawal El Saadawi (89), Egyptian feminist, writer & campaigner who fought against patriarchy & poverty, died
2/. “He was a deeply moral man. His life was one of consequence & meaning, in which he used his energy to turn human wrongs into human rights,” @UPTuks

His father, theologian Johan Heyns, who once described apartheid as a sin, was assassinated in 1994. amnesty.org/en/latest/news…
3/. "Feminism isn’t a Western invention. Feminism wasn’t invented by American women. It’s embedded in the culture & in the struggle of all women all over the world" #NawalElSaadawi to @krishgm in 2018 #MeToo #TimesUp #IstanbulConvention #WomensHistoryMonth
Read 4 tweets
24 Mar
Wow!

@MattHancock has announced that the Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Jenny Harries, will be the first chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency which will aim to plan, prevent & respond to health emergencies like pandemics

How is #JennyHarries still in a job
2/. Jenny Harries has been a handmaiden of the #HerdImmunityScandal

#HerdImmunity is an outcome, NEVER a “strategy”

On 12 March, the govt stopped community testing

On 26/3, #JennyHarries falsely claimed that community testing was "not an appropriate mechanism as we go forward”
3/. Stopping community testing - as the UK did on 12 March - would only make sense as a strategy if the UK’s strategy was to allow #COVID19 to spread through the population

Questioned by @Jeremy_Hunt, Jenny Harries changed her story to a claim of capacity issues. #JennyHarries
Read 17 tweets
23 Mar
1/. Some people just can't take criticism

Did you know that it's illegal to insult a leader in more than a dozen countries

In Poland, a journalist faces up to 3 years in prison for calling President Duda a "moron" in a Facebook post in November

Lighten up Duda, you d******d! Image
2/. Insulting leaders could land you in jail for 3yrs in #Venezuela, 4yrs in #Turkey, 5yrs in #Netherlands, 7yrs in #Bahrain & 15yrs in #Thailand

In #Spain, you can go to jail for insulting the King or the police as rapper @PabloHasel found to his cost
3/. In America, insulting Donald Trump became a national pastime

In Britain, Boris Johnson plays up his “loveable buffoon” image as he clowns around on zip wires & in hard hats

But whilst Trump & Johnson may be very different animals, they both fulfil a very similar function. Image
Read 4 tweets

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