We haven't forgotten.

The Western media's coverage of China's anti-lockdown protests seems odd.

It became a truism of the anti-lockdown movement in the UK that lockdowns were inspired by China. Never before in the ‘democratic’ West did the government intervene to essentially close the economy. People were urged to stay at home and rule-breakers were hounded by the police or Covid wardens or private sector snoops - checking if perfectly healthy people (who may have been in contact with other perfectly healthy people) were at home, in hiding.  

On and off for two years the government behaved like a Politburo, imposing its ridiculous and draconian rules on people for no good reason. And these ‘rules’ were inspired by China. The model was created by China. The fear propaganda and testing and tracing and nonsensical regulation was turned into a copybook - with the democratic West dutifully implementing the same here. 

And, of course, when people of sane mind, who held certain fundamental freedoms as immutable characteristics of life in democracies, started protesting, the protests were faced down. And the media steadfastly ignored huge protests in London, Birmingham, Belfast and Cardiff. Marianna Spring, the BBC’s newly appointed “disinformation” reporter was dispatched to perform hatchet jobs on protestors via Panorama.

And last night - the evening that ITV featured former Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, in the I’m a Celebrity final - its evening news bulletin featured the growing anti-government and anti-lockdown protests in China. 

For months, all over Twitter, we’ve been seeing drone footage of vast concentration camps being constructed in China to house Chinese citizens whose Covid passes have mysteriously turned red.  We’ve seen footage of apartment blocks, once again, being welded shut for fear of the occupants leaving the buildings.  And, over the weekend we have, at last, seen footage of ever-growing protests against China’s Zero Covid policy.  Zero Covid, note. Our lockdowns, here, it’s suggested by the coverage, were a lesser, nicer form of lockdown. 

I noted that NPR, America’s nearest equivalent to the BBC, was tweeting footage from its correspondents in Beijing. NPR, during America’s lockdown, featured articles about the virtues of lockdown - providing time for reflection and listening to birdsong. All this while care home residents in the UK were being prescribed Midazolam in ever-increasing numbers.

The hypocrisy is obvious. Those of us who have taken a stand against lockdown policy have essentially been sidelined, vilified or cancelled for years. The Great Barrington Declaration scientists were denied a platform on our wonderful free-speech loving media. Many were cancelled by Facebook, YouTube and the pre-Musk Twitter.

And now, quite rightly, the actions of the people of China - in standing up for freedom of assembly - are deemed to be acceptable. Of course they are. But lockdowns should never have been implemented here or in Canada or in New Zealand or in Shanghai. They were useless, evil and were accompanied by a systemic programme of misinformation and propaganda peddling by state and state-controlled media.  

We must keep reminding the BBC, ITV, Sky and others.  We haven’t forgotten and we have a newly liberated Twitter on our side.