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Mark Steyn: GB News on your telly and on your wireless, feel free to mix and match. On tonight's Mark Steyn Show, how's that COVID booster shot working for you? We'll take a look at it strictly by the numbers. Leilani Dowding is here fighting for free speech on social media and he was Mr. Universe but is he strong enough to battle the dark forces of lockdown prosecution? And Rod Liddle on lessons learned from traversing Uganda with Boris. Hmm not my idea of a fantastic holiday but you never know. Plus the most important part of the show your take, let me know what's on your mind. [email protected], tweet me at GB News. Stump the Steyn coming up, ask me anything about anything you like and feel free to throw in a few cheap snide ad hominem attacks. You don't have to tie it to the big geopolitical questions, just simple, low abusive insults suffice unto themselves. All that after the news with Polly.
[News]
Mark Steyn: Thank you, Polly; I was hoping we'd get to see that lovely portrait of Her Majesty again. Try and put that back in the nine o'clock bulletin. Not trying to muscle in on your turf but that is a lovely picture of the Queen.
We had an Australian Senator on the show, Malcolm Roberts, just a week or two back who's calling for a Royal Commission into various aspects of COVID policy down under. I would like to second that and call for a Royal Commission into aspects of COVID policy in the United Kingdom these last two years. Because there are untold numbers of victims. We've tried to talk about them here. For example, on our April the fourth show, we discussed Ofsted's report on the immense damage done to UK children by the COVID policies of the last few years. There isn't a lot to be said for a society that screws over an entire generation of children for no good reason.
One very basic cause of the immense damage of the last two years, not just to children, but to non COVID NHS patients who went unseen and untreated and to those in care homes who died alone. And to those who lost livelihoods and to those mired in depression and mental illness, has been the groupthink of the politico-media class. I can't underline this enough. We have needed since March 2020 a far wider range of public discourse on the best way through this thing, especially as a lot of people want to make it permanent. Ursula von der Leyen, at the European Union with digital identity COVID passes and all the rest of it. Instead, we have had the opposite, a crude and banal division of COVID discussion into the official version on the one hand and on the other, disinformation. It's either official, so you can say it, or it's disinformation, so you'll lose your Facebook account.
However, if we are to have this idiotic and reductive division into officialdom and disinformation, completely unbecoming to a supposedly free society, then let me say that everything that follows are official numbers from the UK Health Security Agency. And there's only one conclusion from those numbers, which is that the third booster shots so zealously promoted by the British state, and its groupthink media has failed, and in fact exposed you to significantly greater risk of infection, hospitalization and death. There has to be an accounting for this and other disastrous groupthink policies, which is why I want that Royal Commission and you should too. To emphasize these are all government statistics, and you ought to be able to cite them even on British television. So, let us start with the basics. There are approximately equal numbers of triple vaccinated, as of the combined total of single, double, and unvaccinated. This is from the UK Health Security Agency's report last week of April the 14th.
Let's take a look at this, as you can see from a pool of 63 million down at the bottom there, 63 million, there are 32 million who are triple vaccinated. That leaves just under 31 million, who are either double single or unvaccinated. So we have two groups of similar size, 31, 32 million. So it's relatively easy to weigh the merits of the third shot upon Group A versus group B. Here are the COVID case numbers from the government report I cited on air earlier this month. All the numbers here basically come from March; they basically come from up to a couple of weeks ago. And if you look at this, this shows COVID 19 cases by vaccination status. So the triple vaccinated in March were responsible for just over a million COVID cases and everybody else 475,000 COVID cases. So the triple vaccinated are contracting COVID at approximately twice the rate of the double, single and unvaccinated.
Got that? If you get the booster shot, you've got twice as high a chance of getting the COVID. In the United Kingdom, there's twice as many people with the third booster shot who got the COVID, as the people who never had the booster shot. It's a widespread phenomenon. This by the way, I just looked this up before the show. This is New York City. If you can see that the top line, no you probably can't see it. But the top line shows the people who got the booster shot. And there's far more COVID cases in New York City by people with the third shot than with anything else. So the court eunuchs of the appalling groupthink media have retreated to reduced claims for the vaccine. Oh, sure, it won't prevent you getting the COVID but it will lessen your likelihood of being hospitalized.
From the same report by Her Majesty's Government that I cited just a moment ago, let's check that one out, too. So let's put this one up here. And again, you see there in the far right hand column, that's the people with the third COVID shot. And then you see sort of in the middle, the people who aren't vaccinated at all, that number 147 at the bottom. So triple vaccinated people who wound up spending a night in hospital 6,750. Everybody else 3,576. So the triple vaccinated are being hospitalized overnight for COVID at approximately twice the rate of the double, single and unvaccinated. And one notes in particular the significant differences in hospitalization numbers in those over 60. So that leaves a sole claim for the efficacy of the heavily promoted booster shot. Oh, sure, it won't prevent you getting the COVID or being hospitalized, but it will lessen your likelihood of being dead.
And again, from the same report by HMG. And let's just take a look at this: deaths within 28 days of positive COVID tests in all age groups and the triple vaccinated, again in the far right hand column there, and everybody else, the other columns. Let's just add it up because it's such a huge difference. Triple vaccinated who are dead within 28 days 1,557. Everybody else dead within 28 days 577.
So the triple vaccinated are dying within 28 days at a rate approximately three times higher than the rest of the population. Why aren't we talking about this? If the booster shot is making it thrice as likely that you're going to be deadsville, that they're going to be carrying you out by the handles, why aren't we talking about that?
Okay, let's have deaths within 60 days of a positive COVID test. Again, in all age groups and again on the far right, that's the triple vaccinated. So there's 2,100 and whatever 80-year-olds and over and then in the in their 70s 611, so that again, to add up all the numbers, the triple vaccinated who are dead within 60 days, last month 3,050. Everybody else, 1,003. So yet again, the triple vaccinated are dying at three times the rate of the double, single and unvaccinated. And indeed for the 60 plus cohort, the most vulnerable in our society, at a rate getting close to four times. Could we stop killing old people? What's with you? Is this some kind of dystopian fiction that the deep state comes up with a plan to off all the geezers? Didn't you kill enough people in the care homes in the first year and a half of this thing? Now we've devised a booster shot that kills almost four times as many old people, if you if you get this shot, as if you don't. The third shot not only has no efficacy, it increases your chances of hospitalization and death. But because the court eunuchs of the UK groupthink media deny us any honest discussion or even basic dissemination of the government numbers, most people aren't aware of that. The third shot was clearly a shot too far that has damaged the immune systems of many people and made them less able to resist infection and death.
What do all these overknighted nitwits flanking the PM at the press conference have to say about this? The benefits of one and two shots are more debatable, although one notes that on all the tables I've just put up on the screen, the lowest numbers are for those who had one shot and done. So we shouldn't even be contemplating shots every six months, fourth shots, fifth shots, six shots, because it's not just that they're useless. It's that you're more likely to be infected, you're more likely to be hospitalized overnight, and you're more likely to be dead. So at least if you're dead after the fourth shot, you're won't have to get the fifth, sixth or seventh.
But let's look at the outright COVID "deniers," the legions of the unvaccinated who are routinely accused of clogging up the hospitals and accelerating the malfunctioning of the dismal NHS, whose protection the government chose to prioritize. Let us begin with the COVID 19 vaccine surveillance report week three, this would be the end of January, which is the first report to separate out persons who received a third booster shot. And then let's check in every three weeks. The trend lines are pretty clear. So these are overnight hospitalization numbers. Have we got the....yeah, this is the right graph. Yeah for week three, there's more triple vaccinated than unvaccinated for persons 60 and over. So in other words, if you're 60 and over in January, and you never bother getting into the system at all, you had no shots, you didn't have a third shot, second shot first shot, you're in the clear, you have a better chance of not catching the COVID than the people who were triple jabbed and over 60.
Three weeks later there's more triple vaccinated than unvaccinated infected persons 40 and over. Week nine another three weeks later, more triple vaccinated persons than unvaccinated persons getting the COVID 18 and over. So the gap, the disastrous performance of the booster shot is getting worse as the weeks go by. Now to make it easier to get the upshot, I put the rest into my own table. But if you're some self appointed fact checker, you can get off your bum and check the facts for yourself in the HSA vaccine surveillance reports for week three, week six, week nine week 12 and week 13 and then get back to me.
So let's see what about death? Here we are in week three, the first week there were more deaths among the triple vaccinated than unvaccinated for persons 70 and over. Week six more deaths among the triple vaccinated and unvaccinated for persons 60 and over. Week nine, more deaths for persons 50 and over. Week 12 more deaths for persons 40 over. And week 13 more deaths among the triple vaccinated than unvaccinated for persons 18 and over. Again, the trend line is not difficult to grasp here. What about death within 60 days? Again, more deaths among the triple vaccinated for persons 70 an over, three weeks later, 60 and over, another three weeks later, 40 and over, and then another three weeks later more deaths among the triple vaccinated for persons 30 and over. Why are we not supposed to talk about this? This is an interesting trend line. Even in as sick and constricted a culture of free speech as the United Kingdom's, it should be possible to cite official government numbers without being cancelled or investigated or shadow banned on Twitter or being labeled as misinformation. It's not possible.
Just back in the day, do you remember the days before March 2020, when we still had medical ethics? Remember those things medical ethics? It's not possible for a citizen to give informed consent to a vaccine, unless he's informed, so the groupthink media's quashing of these numbers is highly disturbing. For another, the inference is that those zombies who mindlessly "follow the science, must keep following the science," which means following government spokespersons, have injected themselves with something that increases their likelihood of infection, hospitalization and death. Dividing everything into official and disinformation has prevented honest discussion and had an undoubted chilling effect on public discourse with respect to the COVID, the lockdown, the NHS, the schools and more.
You can see it in any media production office. "Oh, I was thinking of doing something tonight on the failure of the so called booster shot, the third shot." "We don't need another Ofcom complaint. Let's just stick with Harry and Meghan. The hasty rollout of an at best useless and at worst, decidedly dangerous third shot is a valid subject for the public square, and I assert the right to quote official government statistics. And because these numbers suggest an unnecessary tragedy, amplified by this soul crushing groupthink in the UK media, I want a Royal Commission. Let me know your thoughts [email protected]. Or you can tweet me at GB News.
Leilani Dowding, businesswoman, reality TV star, former Page 3 girl and a robust presence on social media joins me. Leilani you're someone who....I never thought of you as a controversial person. And then suddenly, in the last two years, practically everything you do is controversial. So you've become a victim of the group groupthink media on all kinds of subjects, not just COVID, but Ukraine and all kinds of other things. What do you think of the state of free speech in British society right now?
Leilani Dowding: Well, I think it's really disappearing. You can't ask any questions you can't make any comments. You know, I've said before that the moment you questioned the efficacy of the vaccine, or give any kind of stats, you get shut down. So I even was taken off Facebook for 30 days because I talked about a class action lawsuit in Australia for a horse vaccine that caused horses to die. Now, you know what, there are parallels. And obviously they're afraid of these parallels that you can't even talk about something similar. And then another thing you know, a lot of people were bringing up polio vaccines, you know, everyone's had their polio or tetanus vaccine. What if you got polio, or tetanus in the same way the triple jabbed and the boosted are catching COVID, you know, sometimes twice? So imagine that you get polio where you get your tetanus vaccine, and then you catch polio and tetanus. So, you know, the real people that were pushing it, the groupthink people were trying to dismiss anyone that had any questions by talking about vaccines that are out there, but they're not working in the same way this COVID vaccine isn't working.
Mark Steyn: No they've slightly redefined.....I just want to go back to that horse thing of yours. So these horses or their owners presumably, get together and start a class action lawsuit because the happy juice they've been giving the horses is causing them to keel over. And simply because......so you mentioning that people, people, Facebook or whatever they say "Ah ha, she's trying to get in the vaccine subject, by a roundabout way by mentioning horses, but we're on top of that. So we're gonna ban her from talking about horse vaccines."
Leilani Dowding: Absolutely. And I actually posted the class action lawsuit website, there's a $53 million class action lawsuit against Zoetis in Australia, because people were forced to give it to their horses. If they didn't give it to their horses, their vet wouldn't come to their horses, they couldn't compete their horses and take them to shows and people that worked with horses, were going to lose their jobs if they didn't have their own personal horses vaccinated. So there are parallels. And I was banned for 30 days. It's crazy. Then there was another one I just got, I got a suspension on Twitter, because I posted a Daily Mail article talking about a 120,000 pound payout for vaccine damages. And I said, well, why aren't the big pharma companies paying for this? They've made billions from their vaccines and selling their vaccines? Why is it the taxpayer's paying? So again, I got shut down. And I just don't understand why it's so controversial to ask these questions. I mean, you really have to look at the efficacy of it.
Mark Steyn: Well, the funny thing, I mean, I'm fascinated by that horse thing, because you're basically saying that, in fact, the pilot program for the vaccine passport was like tried out on Black Beauty and Champion the Wonder Horse first and then and, and they're so paranoid in the media, that simply by talking about a mandatory vaccine mandate, an equine vaccine mandate, that might cause people to start thinking about human vaccine mandates. How long can this go on? I mean, my sense is that setting aside the millions who are dead from COVID, and people who are dying from all kinds of other things, one thing that is totally dead these last two years is any kind of genuine culture of free expression.
Leilani Dowding: Well, absolutely, you can't you can't discuss it and then you get shut down and then you get name called. So you know, if you asked anything about the lockdowns or masks, which have all turned out to be ineffective, you get called a COVID denier. You ask about the vaccines you get called an anti-vaxxer. I mean, I've had other vaccines. And so as soon you ask these things, which you should be able to talk about, and we should be able to have a discussion, we should be able to have, you know, the top virologists being able to speak, you know, the ones that they tried to attack Joe Rogan for having on his show. They are top, top virologists and doctors and cardiologists, all with something to say. And as soon as it goes against this groupthink narrative, that's it.
Mark Steyn: No, and if there's any one subject, which there shouldn't be a one size fits all thing for its medicine and health, and they've succeeded because they've seen you know, you're one of the world's most eminent virologists. And suddenly, they put you in the crazy group. And so your average GP around the country is terrified that he shouldn't actually start speaking out against this, he shouldn't even actually start talking about things he's observed with his own patients. Do you think do you think there's a pushback coming on all of this?
Leilani Dowding: I do think there's a pushback because I do have a lot of doctor friends who spoke out at the start, and they got reported to the GMC. They were thrown off social media as well. Some of them were suspended from their jobs, but doctors like Dr. Sam White, but they won their cases. And hopefully now other doctors have seen that and I've noticed a lot more doctors actually speaking out. There was a surgeon today, a knee surgeon who was talking about masks and how, how he wears them in surgery to perform surgery but they're ineffective at stopping viruses. And he explained, you know, the whole mechanics of it and how it just doesn't work. So I do think there's pushback and there needs to be pushback, because otherwise, it is going to turn into almost a social credit system of what you're allowed to say, the narrative you have to follow? You know, my friends at the Together Declaration. They discussed risk versus reward with five to 11-year-old children, and they just got a 12 hour ban on Twitter, I think it was yesterday. And anyone who reposted it got between 12 hours and seven days. So they are not letting people discuss this. And it's so important because there are mandates, you still can't travel, if you're like me who's unvaccinated. I'm not allowed to go to Spain unless I go hang out with somebody who's got COVID, catch it myself and go and get a recovery certificate. So I might have to go and hang out with my vaxxed friends who seem to be getting it a lot more than me.
Mark Steyn: Yes, you need to go through the streets, find some diseased person who will expectorate all over you and then you'll be free to go and have a café au lait in a French bistro. This is nutso land. You know what they used to say? Oh, doctor, can I get a second opinion? Well, if you attempt to put a second opinion on Facebook or Twitter, you get banned. Thank you very much, Leilani we always appreciate you joining us. We're gonna get your reaction next [email protected] or tweet me at GB News and we'll be joined by a casualty of our disastrous lockdown policies. That's all coming up. Don't touch that dial. We'll be right back
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Mark Steyn: Hey, let's get to your emails. Bob says, actually he's not an emailer he prefers to tweet. He says in response to my demand for a Royal Commission, he says "No, we should have court cases."
No, I think the trouble is this goes up very high to the highest level in government. And it's basically a state policy enforced on people whose failures you know, you can give them the benefit of the doubt in mid March 2020. But by early April, the damage was pretty much clear. Cepe say—if I've mispronounced your name I do apologize—Cepe says: "No as a country we spend too much time and way too much money investigating and not enough investing in now and the future."
That's all very good. But we blew through a bazillion pounds in these COVID mitigation methods. So we're broke and it's going to be like the cost of the Great War. We're not going to be paying it off until the next century. The First World War they paid it off basically a century later, the war debt, and that's going to be with the COVID debt too. And as Boris Johnson said on GB News just a few days ago, he doesn't rule out another lockdown. So he's going to do it to you again, he's taken these powers. The government has taken these and by the way, if he loses at the next election, that guy who doesn't know what a woman is, what's he called the leader of the opposition, the first leader of the opposition in the history of this great nation not to know what a woman is? I can't remember his name, is it Keir Starmer, something like that? He says he's going to do this to you.
So the reason we need a Royal Commission is to establish that this was wrong, this was damaging. It has killed people in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales and we should stop killing them by encouraging them to get this useless third shot.
Sue says "Are you in favor of a Starmer-Sturgeon coalition?" That's so catchy; I haven't been so thrilled about anything since the Hitler-Stalin Pact. That's lovely.
Louise says, "I think to be fair, you have to take other factors into account, people dying with COVID, not of COVID. Older people are generally more likely to die of any cause."
Yeah, that's true. That's generally true. If you're 27 like Louise, you're less likely to die than I am, I'm 137. So that's generally true, but we matched these numbers across all age groups. So the point is an 80-year-old with a booster shot is more likely to die than an 80-year-old without a booster shot. And likewise, a 30-year-old with a booster shot is more likely to die than a 30-year-old without a booster shot. That's the point. There's something going on here, they're still trying to shove it into your arm. They're still trying to say just shoot the juice to me, Bruce and No, no resist. This third booster shot, there's something going on and people should be free to talk about it even on British telly.
Talking to Esther McVey on this very channel only the other day, as I just mentioned, the Prime Minister refused to rule out another lockdown even though many people barely survived the first and Lord Sumption, a former Supreme Court judge, called those first lockdowns illegal. Now the former Mr. Universe, Eddie Ellwood, owns a gym. And he defied the rules and opened his gym. And he's been ordered to pay 55,000 pounds. Eddie joins me now. Eddie, on what basis did they come out with that number, 55,000 pounds?
Eddie Ellwood: 26,000 pounds council costs and a 30,000 pound fine because of the health and safety regulations the setup breached but I wasn't at work. I was holding a peaceful assembly.
Mark Steyn: So the 26,000 pounds is council costs. What did they mean by that? The cost of the council to you?
Eddie Ellwood: Yeah, the cost of the council legalities. I never got in all the time I was protesting at the gym, because I opened my gym for protest. In all of that time I never got issued with one fine. I was never charged. I was never arrested and I was never read me rights. So I don't understand why six months after the fact they take me back to court.
Mark Steyn: So 55,000 pounds is a hell of a lot of money for almost everyone in this kingdom. Are you going to repeal it?
Eddie Ellwood: Yeah, most definitely. I was studying me rights. I need to highlight what I was doing it for; I wasn't doing it ignorantly, like you've shown the facts and statistics on other things. I studied all the Ofsted statistics and the NHS facts. And I came up with the conclusion that under 40, well, actually under 40 at the time of my protests and only 52 people had died of COVID, yet the suicide rate in the Northeast alone was 211.
Mark Steyn: God bless you for saying that, sir. That's one of the most awful aspects of this evil regime, this COVID-stan we've been living in is that things like suicide, mental health.... This is the reason you opened your gym, apart from anything else, is because that's actually quite healthy for people, just not in terms of physical health but of mental health, too. Can I ask you this? The head of government in this land has been fined by the Metropolitan Police and he's paying 50 pounds for that birthday cake, 50 pounds for the head of government and you a gym owner you've got a 1000 times bigger fine than that. How do you feel about the Prime Minister's fine versus yours?
Eddie Ellwood: Well, for first thing is I was doing it as a humanitarian thing. This guy here [holds up a photo], he died in first lockdown to suicide. He was one of my gym members, six weeks in. I had another guy who rung me at 1:30 in the morning, had a nervous breakdown ended up getting sectioned. And I promised everybody that if I could find a way, I would find a way of helping these people that were suffering and so I opened my gym to peaceful assembly for those who suffer from mental health, because the gym is a big thing. And it is essential for people with mental health. And people who don't train won't get that, but it is a massive thing. So sorry, getting back to the Prime Minister. What I did, I did with good intentions. And in the 2021 lockdown, sorry the Amendments of the Coronavirus Act on Protests and Peaceful Assembly. It stated that peaceful assembly could go ahead, protest, if it had good enough reason. And I think suicide was good enough reason. So I was protesting against mental health. The Prime Minister was having parties. It also said in the same amendment was the 13th Amendment March 21. It said that if police didn't understand what they were trying to deliver in the new regulations, then how would they expect the public to understand those regulations? And if the public didn't understand the regulations they shouldn't stand. And what I can't get over it is how come that Boris did supposedly did understand as getting away with what he has, a 50 pound fine. Yet they fined me 30,000 pound under the Health and Safety at Work Act when I wasn't at work, me staff were furloughed, also on a peaceful assembly that everybody attested to and signed a declaration to, where Boris was at work so why isn't he being fined under the Health and Safety at Work Act?
Mark Steyn: Well, which court gets this case next? What's the next level?
Eddie Ellwood: I'm not too sure, I haven't appealed yet. Obviously 56,000 pounds is a lot of money and I don't really have the funds to keep taking it further but that's another thing. If you're standing in your truth, and you can't actually afford to take your case further than what we find you guilty. And you're not guilty. You know, so it's a Catch-22. But I'm strong enough to take this further and I will take it further.
Mark Steyn: What's the local council, the one that's stuck you with these 26,000 pounds of costs or whatever it is, which council is that?
Eddie Ellwood: This is Hartlepool Borough Council.
Mark Steyn: Hartlepool Borough Council?
Eddie Ellwood: Yeah and from the get go, I let them know I was not open to business. I told them me business was closed, me staff were furloughed, but I was opening for peaceful protest. I sent them reasons, why Alan's death another lad, so I told them about the mental health issues. I also showed them the statistics of suicide and the statistics of those who died of COVID. So I did some sort of risk analysis. So you know, I was....
Mark Steyn: This is disgraceful because basically, the COVID started and then whatever it was three or four months later, we had all these riots across the world for Black Lives Matter and governments turned a blind eye to all those people rampaging through the streets. So if you'd just rampaged through the streets of Hartlepool to the Borough Council headquarters and smashing statues along the way, they wouldn't have had any problem with this but because you have exercised your right to a peaceful protest, that is a hallmark of any civilized society you've now got 55,000 quids worth of fines levied against you, while the Prime Minister stuffs his face with cake for 50 pounds apiece. This is disgraceful. Let us know, keep us up to date on where you go next with this case, because this is a disgrace. You're quite right to point out the mental health aspects of it and this is purely punitive, because you aren't like a good little serf obeying your government masters. God bless you, Eddie. Best of luck with that case. We're gonna stay on this and have you back to let us know how it's going.
Eddie Ellwood: Ok.
Mark Steyn: You can ask me anything you'd like in Stump the Steyn, [email protected]. But this is a terrible thing, reflects badly. He's being punished for not signing on to the official lockdown line. Rod Liddle is coming up, and he's in Uganda with Boris. We'll have that straight ahead.
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Mark Steyn: I'm joined now by the one and only Rod Liddle who had a wonderful meditation on Africa in the Sunday Times based on his travels through Uganda, with Boris Johnson, but also in the light of the money we're giving to Rwanda to solve the problems on our southern shores. So, Rod, do you do you think the whole Rwandan thing is a fairly cynical attempt to deflection? In other words, just move it to Africa? And even if it goes horribly wrong it's a long way from southern England?
Rod Liddle: No, I suspect it's a genuine attempt to address the problem. Whether it works or not, it's a different issue, I genuinely do not know. My suspicion is that it will deter a few people from trying to come here. And I suspect that that is the only point of it, which is a deterrence. And that's what gets me annoyed about the left on the on this issue. If they were able to say, well, here's my solution to the problem, here's what we should do. But they never do, they have no [coughs] excuse me, Mark, they have no answer to this whatsoever. And they do not care that these 20 to 30-yearold men who turn up on our shores every day of the week, are pushed into the front of a queue which has in it disabled people, elderly people, women, children from real war zones. They don't care. It's performative on their part. It's virtue signaling. And if I were, if I were God, I would I would strike them down like that. Strike them down.
Mark Steyn: Well, you know, you're right about that. But isn't that because their solution is not to have a solution? They're happy. I don't quite know why but they're happy with the present situation. As you say, it's all young men. There are these boats in which everyone's a young man. I was on the Ukrainian-Hungarian border. It's bedraggled women, children with all their possessions on their back trying to get into Hungary. This is all men, and the left is cool with it. And I wonder why you think that is?
Rod Liddle: Well, the left is cool with it because it could do nothing apart from gain from it. It is able to emote and emote loudly from the sidelines, we must do something about this. And everything the government tries to do about this they object to, whether it's sending boats back, or whether it's setting up a processing center in a different country, as Australia did and Denmark is thinking of doing. Whatever it is we do, they would rather see people die in the Channel than actually have a solution to this. And I had an argument about this a long time ago now. It must be about seven or eight years ago, I was on Question Time with Simon Schama, who I think is one of the sickest people I've ever had the pleasure of talking to and all he was doing is "We must do something. We must help these people." And I'd say "Well look, Simon, the more we bring people into shore, the more we help the people in the Channel. A) The more people will die trying to get across which I assume you don't want, and B) the worse the problem will become. You know, it won't work. So what I'm trying to look at what outcomes there might be made. You know, and he got really cross and called me suburban.
Mark Steyn: Oh my word!
Rod Liddle: I've never lived in the suburbs, Mark.
Mark Steyn: No, no, don't buy into that, some of my best friends are suburban. Well, you know, since we're talking about Simon Schama, I don't want to be.... I had a debate with him in Toronto a couple of years ago, I don't want to get into that but Simon in that debate, Simon Schama said that he knew Muslim people on the basis that every morning he'd pass his the newsstand and he'd buy a copy of The Guardian or whatever it was from the Muslim news agent. And that and that seemed to be the contemporary equivalent of, you know, these Indian chappies are just tremendous, my Hindu native bearer is marvelous. It's a like a reverse colonialism, except that the people we used to have to go a long way away to colonize now come here and sell us The Guardian from the newsstand. But that's what Simon Schama thinks of them.
Rod Liddle: It is so appallingly patronizing and the immediate thing it brings to mind is Margaret Thatcher's quote, that when challenged about poor people, she said, "I know poor people, there was some I passed it our street." You know, if you remember that, from about 35 years ago, exactly the same sort of thing. But that is what the left has become. And it treats people of an ethnic minority as if they were children, as if they as if they were needy children. And they are the white savior myth, the white liberals are the people who actually perpetuate that white savior myth, where they think that black and Asian people can't do it for themselves, which of course they can and have shown that they can. And they think that black and Asian people aren't really black and Asian if they don't agree with all their fatuous shibboleths of the liberal left. It's racist, it's down the line racist. And you know, some of my some of my friends who are black, have suffered terribly from it, you know, Tony Sewell, who is a really valued friend, and who wrote, authored that brilliant report on racial disparities in this country. He gets called appalling things by the white liberals for refusing to accept that there is structural racism in that in this country, which of course there isn't. I suspect Schama was worried when he came up against you in Toronto, Mark. He was expecting it to be a proper Canadian, whereas you are one of about three Canadians left with a grasp of sanity. There's you and [inaudible].
Mark Steyn: Now, now. Whatever's wrong with Canada, New Zealand under Jacinda Ardern is worse.
Rod Liddle: You are not wrong.
Mark Steyn: So if we get to pick which is a deranged dominion, New Zealand is ahead of Canada on that front. In that Sunday Times article, you make a very interesting point though, the blaming everything on colonialism that goes on in Africa, which basically led to....I mean, countries like South Africa, the minute they found that the Ukrainian side was being backed by the West, they more or less openly were cheering on Putin just because he's not Western. So in other words, that sort of colonial paradigm still dominates there.
Rod Liddle: It does, and it's one, it's one we have fostered. What we've done is tell them that in all their delusions, they're totally right. And there are plenty of institutions which we have set up, such as the United Nations, and UNICEF, and indeed, the World Health Organization, who are more than prepared to agree with the suggestion that all of their ills are a consequence of whitey colonizing the continent. And it couldn't be further from the truth, it could not possibly be further from the truth. And it is so easily disproved just by looking at Liberia and Ethiopia, comparing them to Singapore and Malaysia, you know, look at Haiti.
Mark Steyn: No Liberia, that phase they had a few years ago, the belief where they not only kill the predecessor, but they then eat his private parts, on the basis that the powers of the dead leader are transferred to yourself. I'm not necessarily not in favor of introducing that system here. But I..
Rod Liddle: Well I don't mind that though the least palatable thing I can think of at the moment is eating Boris Johnson's genitals, which is....you've put that into my mind now, it's not going to go away and I'm going to have to suffer thinking about that.
Mark Steyn: Okay, that's what's on the menu at Number 10, who's going to eat Boris Johnson's genitals? Thank you for spelling it out for us, Rod Liddle, great to see you.
Let's close the things out with a little bit of Stumping. A Twitter user referencing what we said earlier says, "Don't you have to weight those statistics by percentage of population in each category, even so I think you've got a point."
No, let me just make this clear. There's 32 million who had the third booster shot, there's 31 million who didn't. So we can directly compare the numbers, overall numbers, because they're the same size. So if you've got the booster shot, you're dying at three times the rate of the people who didn't get the booster shot.
Another Twitter user says, "As a conservative myself, I have no idea why other conservatives are pushing non science. The vaccine is safe and has saved millions of lives. There is data to support this. Anecdotal data where people claim they know people...."
I didn't do anecdotal data, little Mr. Twitter user, I did the government statistics that were released two weeks ago. The government numbers on these extraordinarily higher rates of death among the boostered. There were no anecdotes. I can tell you an anecdote, a girl just up the road actually died of the booster shot a couple of days ago, but that's not what we did. We did the government numbers. Deal with it. And let's talk about it.
Okay, that's going to do it. Oh one of my favorite telly shows is coming up, the best two hour late night show on TV. That is Dan Wootton.
We are done. I'm out.
