Anna Nicholas: My Column

PUBLIC Health England has been thrilled to announce in the UK media that, thanks to lockdown, flu has been completely eradicated during the last year. Well, stone the crows. How convenient is that? A veritable miracle has occurred while so many deaths have been attributed to Covid-19 of course instead.

Let me take you back to 30, November 2018 when both the Daily Mail and the BBC reported hysterically that the Office of National Statistics (ONS) had confirmed 50,000 excess winter deaths in England and Wales due to the flu the previous year. Yep, a whopping 50,000 in a matter of months.

It was claimed that due to virulent new flu strains the death rate was the highest since the winter of 1975-76. The country did not shut down. Life continued as normal.

The government and the tabloid press went to town about how not a high enough proportion of the general public had opted for the flu vaccine. In other words, they only had themselves to blame, especially those over 65.

The British Medical Journal smelt a rat and discovered that there had not been nearly so many deaths from flu but other causes and that there were ethical issues at stake. The conclusion was that the government had wilfully exaggerated flu mortality rates to suit its own agenda. It asked ‘Why cannot the public be trusted with the truth?’

There’s a whiff of history repeating itself with the government and the media seemingly in collusion. Striking terror in the heart of the nation is always a good prompt for achieving control. When the public, like a poor brainless hare caught in the headlights, is debilitated by fear, it becomes perfectly malleable and compliant.

I wonder why flu has magically disappeared and whether, quite magically, it will reappear next Winter. I wonder how many deaths recorded due to Covid-19 are real. In fact, hard evidence from care homes already balks at the figures offered.

People have, and are, dying of the virus and it is a vile and wretched illness, but is the government wildly exaggerating the number of mortalities due to Covid as it did with flu back in 2018 and if so, why?

So, Mr Johnson, as the esteemed BMJ quizzed back in 2018, why cannot the public be trusted with the truth?

Iceland talking gibberish?

Keith Hann, the corporate affairs director of Iceland has just been fired from his £102,000 a year post for describing the Welsh language as gibberish. In his Twitter comments, viewable by the general public, Hann also described it as a dead language and was fairly insulting about the general character of the local countrymen.

When angry Welsh Twitter users read his views they contacted Iceland HQ in their legions and demanded that he was sacked. He had no chance to fall on his sword and apologise. This was strict and vicious Cancel Culture at play. Off with his head. He doesn’t share our views. Chip Chop.

Are the Welsh odd? Years ago, I hired a Welsh assistant in the PR and marketing department I ran. My boss was furious. Oh God, he bawled, why did you pick the miserable Welsh cow? She’ll be a total nightmare. Of course, these days, he’d have probably received death threats and been sacked from his own company.

As it happened I liked the Welsh applicant. There was something a tad melancholic about her but she had a great CV, was very intelligent and articulate and had met all the criteria of the job unlike other candidates. Annoyingly, she did turn out to be a wet blanket and was constantly pulling sickies and in the end had to leave.

My boss was jubilant, leaping childishly around the office shouting, ‘Told you so! Told you so!’

Should Keith Hann have got the push? I’m not sure. He was stupid, ignorant and unkind but had he really offended the Welsh nation so badly with his few cretinous remarks on Twitter? Couldn’t the readers all have just man-ed or woman-ed up and taken it on the chin, and possibly laughed at or pitied him, rather than squealed to Iceland?

It’s a Welsh company so it evidently felt it had to act quickly in the current epoch where lynch mobs roam the streets and butcher one another, at least verbally, if one holds an opposing view.

All the same, I feel no pity for Hann. In the current climate you learn never to voice a controversial opinion on social media for fear of death or possibly worse. Two weeks ago, a publican who follows me on Twitter had one of his Essex pubs burnt down by an angry Twitter troll – luckily a tenant upstairs escaped the flames - and mouthy broadcaster, Piers Morgan, has just been threatened with death and serious harm to his immediate family by another.

So frightened is he that the police have installed panic buttons in the house and he will have security.

Am I perturbed that Welsh readers will rise up and condemn me heartily for not stoning Hann for the terrible hurt he inflicted on a great nation? Well guys, I’ve got news for you.

Nicholas is, as some of you may know, a Welsh name. My father was Welsh, and I spent idyllic holidays in Llansteffan with my beloved grandfather and step grandmother. They hated speaking English and only spoke Welsh together and with their neighbours.

When I arrived in the village they’d all laugh good-naturedly at my accent and christened me Miss BBC. Should I as a seven-year-old have ‘cancelled’ them, written tearful, self-righteous letters back home about such painful mockery? Would I heck.