There is a world of difference between the way a responsible broadcaster, or newspaper, approaches editing and the way a conspiracy theorist making videos does.

The MSM will check for accuracy and legality. Those with particular political stances will spin the story in the writing. Those without won’t. It’s the latter which I regard as truthful and trustworthy.

Video makers cut and splice. They omit sections and answers that don’t suit their narrative. The only way to determine what was actually said is to watch the whole and not selected portions. You could choose a selection of words from most posts on this board and reassemble them to tell a different story.

Rand Paul is not highly respected and nor was his father. He has a history of vaccine opposition and has provided support for some of the most scurrilous any-vax profiteers.

He asks loaded questions in the video and demands yes or no answers to questions which cannot be answered in such terms. There’s always more complexity than that. It was just showboating to a particular audience.

This was no better, or possibly even worse, than a Brand or Campbell video in the way it attempts to distort, discredit and spread misinformation.

As usual if you don't agree with someone's certain views or opinions you are automatically a conspiracy theorist.

As usual if you don't agree with someone's certain views or opinions you are automatically a conspiracy theorist.

We know what the impact on the NHS now is record backlogs. As do those who are going to die having missed treatment.
Your instinct tells you one thing and everything else is disingenuous nonsense. Well, guess what?

No guessing needed. The facts speak for themselves.

The pandemic has caused significant damage to an already strained NHS, with lengthy waiting lists and missed diagnoses. No debate about that is required.

What’s disputed is the conflation of that fact with the lockdowns. The one does not follow the other. Lockdowns were part of the effort to mitigate the impact on the NHS. It was never expected to avoid it and there is not a shred of evidence to support the idea that not to have had lockdowns would have produced a better result. It is a disingenuous assertion. We probably should have locked down earlier and harder so we could have then eased off sooner.

For sure there will continue to be deaths related to the consequences of the pandemic. It’s inevitable. It was always a very difficult judgement call to decide the least bad response, all of which were terrible. Knowing how terrible the results of the one we decided makes it easy to criticise. Not knowing how another might have fared doesn’t mean it gets a free pass. It just means we don’t know, although some seem to think they do, but they always think they know better on subjects they know little about.