I had a Skype chat with Jonathan Sumption last Spring. He’d heard of the show and told me that he was keen to come on. He was off on holiday he told me, but he committed to coming on when he returned.
Sumption is a former UK Supreme Court judge.
Following our conversation, I emailed him a few times. Each reply was shorter than the previous one, each excuse for not coming on was more vague than the last. He’d changed his mind or his mind had been changed for him. I’d wager it’s the latter.
I was planning to go after him in the interview. His views on the folly and tyranny of lockdowns were admirable, but after we’d chatted on Skype, he endorsed the covid jabs. In fact, he took to urging people to go and be vaccinated.
I wanted to take him on. I believed then and believe now that he knew better than that.
How could he not know that the jabs were doing serious harm, both here, in Europe and around the world? After all, he’s a first-rate researcher. Why would someone with such a sharp and clinical legal mind, endorse a brand new medicine unless he had thoroughly researched it?
He’s written a piece in today’s Telegraph. In it, he warns of Europe’s lurch towards authoritarianism. Yawn. Change the record Jonny.
He laments the fact that the politicians keep turning to lockdowns to supress infections, despite the fact that it doesn’t work. Those silly public servants eh? When will they learn? As far as Sumption is concerned, it’s incompetence or sheer bloody-mindedness.
It couldn’t be anything else right? How could Sumption not know that something else is going on here? Answers on a postcard please.
Here’s what he wrote about vaccines today:
Opposition to vaccines is foolish. They are highly effective at preventing serious illness and death. But they are not as effective against infection or transmission as was once thought….
Those who refuse to be vaccinated may be unwise, perhaps selfish. But if they are not even allowed to decide what medical procedures they will undergo and what drugs they receive into their own bodies, then there is not much left of their autonomy as human beings.
The way is wide open to despotism and unending social discord. The rest of us should look on and note how easily liberal democracy can be subverted by fear.
Opposition to vaccines is not foolish. Nor is it unwise. It’s prudent. The jabs have been around less than a year, are still in trial and there is no long term data. Sumption MUST know this.
How could someone so committed to the defence of individual freedom suggest that it might be selfish not to be jabbed?
He’s a gatekeeper. What else can it be? It’s not sour grapes on my part either, don’t even start with that. I’ve been turned down by better men and women than Sumption. It’s par for the course when producing radio shows.
Sumption is a good old boy, that’s all. He’s been thrown a bone. “There there Jonathan, talk about totalitarianism and despotism all you like. Go on Talk Radio, write in The Telegraph, but be sure and endorse the jabs won’t ya?” There’s a good lad.
