On many issues – lockdowns, Net Zero, free speech, wokery, to name a few – the Daily Sceptic and Spikedare usually on the same page. Links to its articles frequently appear in our bulletins. However, one area where, since early 2021, we have diverged sharply is on Covid vaccines. At TDS we have maintained a sceptical guard against the often overhyped claims of safety and efficacy put out by Government and other sources. Articles questioning them – often by experts in the field – have become part of our standard fare. Spiked, on the other hand, has stuck firmly to its pro-vaccine position. Not a single article questioning the Government line on vaccine safety and efficacy has ever, to my knowledge, graced its pages – though despite this, to its credit, it has (mostly) maintained a firm line against vaccine coercion.
Rarely has this difference been so apparent as in a piece this week by Deputy Editor Fraser Myers that can only be described as a brutal polemic against Andrew Bridgen, the U.K. Member of Parliament who has been vocal in his criticism of the Covid vaccines and was last month kicked out of the Conservative Party.
The article, titled ‘The delusions of Andrew Bridgen‘ and setting the dismissive tone with its opening line, “It can be tempting to ignore the antivax conspiracy theorists”, contains many errors of fact, as well as misrepresentations. Many readers, I imagine, will be left wondering why a website that they read for viewpoints not found in the mainstream seems unwilling to countenance the possibility that the Government’s line on the vaccines might – just might – be skewed by the vested interest it has in claiming the vaccine rollout as a big success, or that all the independent experts who have stuck their heads above the parapet to urge caution might – just might – be saying something worth listening to.
Well, be that as it may, what we have instead is Myers’ attack on one of the few MPs raising these issues that are clearly of some concern to a number of his constituents and the medical experts he’s in contact with. Perhaps it would have been better if Myers had ignored him. But seeing as he didn’t, and in the spirit of rational debate rather than name-calling, I will endeavour to respond to Myers’s characterisation of him as an “antivax conspiracy theorist”.
Read More: An Attack on Andrew Bridgen That Needs to Check its Facts
