Quote Originally Posted by jon1959 View Post
The headline was written by a Guardian sub-editor, not the author of the opinion piece. But either way it wasn't written by 'a politically motivated journalist'.

Steve Reicher is a well-known and respected academic - Professor of Social Psychology at St Andrews. His expertise and focus during Covid is on the messages from government (including government scientists and other spokespeople) - what they say and how they are delivered - and the impact on public opinion and response. He has written a series of opinion pieces on this for The Guardian and been interviewed as an expert by the BBC and Channel 4 fairly regularly. He is not an expert on vaccines or on hospitalisation rates from Covid. That is why his piece did not stray into the areas of distraction you threw out.

The fact that the NHS has delivered an impressive vaccination programme (at least until the booster stage) and that the severity of the latest Covid variant isn't yet known, is not relevant to his point. So you are (again) wrong to dismiss the piece.

You are right to say Steve is a 'lefty'. I knew him very well over 40 years ago when we were both in the Socialist Students Alliance at Bristol University. He had his head screwed on then and he has now. The difference between then and now is that he has since spent a working lifetime becoming an authority on social psychology, contributes to the Sage process and has opinions well worth hearing.
Interesting and thanks for posting. Totally agree on the headline writer too. I meant to say that earlier.

This isn't a character assassination. I don't doubt his credentials. What I'm saying is his article was devoid of facts (which is true) and that those core facts would have undermined his argument and the papers editorial position and what its readers want to read.

It would have made for a more nuanced, balanced and accurate article, but it probably wouldn't have been commissioned, he wouldn't have been paid and certainly it wouldnt have been shared as much on social media or discussed as much on CCMB as a result!

Quite clearly, with a disease that infects Europeans the same way and a vaccine that is put into us the same way, the fact that we are 2nd in Europe for booster jabs and 31st for weekly deaths is pretty significant data.

Facts matter at the end of the day and they are absolutely key ones.

The article would be much better as a factual analysis than a largely fact-free diatribe against the government.