Covid Conspiracies - The Questions That Need Answering (before you're daft enough to believe in them)

Many of us look on in bewilderment at the spate of ridiculous Covid conspiracy theories out there, and spend an inordinate amount of time trying to defend the perceived wisdom.  It's time to get off the back foot and take the challenge to the tinfoil hat brigade.  Before anyone even starts to argue that there's some sort of conspiracy, the following questions need to be answered.

What?

What is this conspiracy?  What is its purpose?  If there is a conspiracy here, then clearly it's quite massive, and has taken a lot of time and effort.  So why would someone do that?  What did we have before that they didn't like which will have disappeared if this conspiracy is successful?  What will we have afterwards that we didn't have before?

If we're really being fed vaccines full of microchips, what exactly are they going to do with that?

How?

How has this been perpetrated on us?  How do you manage to bring the world to a halt, economies to their knees, travel to a standstill?  How do you fill the wards of hospitals with people who are not ill, and statistics full of new cases and deaths which aren't actually happening, without someone being able to very clearly and easily shows that to not be the case?

Who?

This is the biggie.  Who is involved and who is to benefit?  As far as I can tell, if there is a conspiracy, all of the following must be in on it, and with a united purpose.

1. Extremely nasty right wing dictators like Bashar Al-Assad of Syria, and Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea
2. Very right wing, nominal 'democracies' like Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil.  Not particularly 'on message' with Covid, and currently playing catch up, but he admits it exists and is dangerous
3. Centre-right democratic leaders like Trump in the US or Johnson in the UK.  Again, not always as 'on message' as you'd like, but spending (for Trump, 'spent') billions, and curtailing freedoms in a way which doesn't sit well with their general political philosophy.  But they're still on board.
4. Centre-left democratic governments like those currently in power in France, Italy and Finland
5. Progressive left wing governments like Jecinda Ardern's in New Zealand.
   
6. Hard left democratic governments like those in Greece
7. Very left wing nominal 'democracies' like Venezuala
8. Extremely nasty left wing dictatorships like North Korea

And then there are the odd ones out like China.  What is that?  A communist, capitalist dictatorship?  And Iran.  A theocracy?

Let's not leave it there.  Look at opposing world views.  Israel's government and Hamas might immediately spring to mind.

What do they all have in common.  They all believe there's a threat to public health from Covid, to the extent that they've brought in unusual and extraordinary measures.  That's right.  The communists agree with the nazis.  The Thatcherites agree with the Corbynistas.  The Israelis agree with the Palestinians.  The religious Islamic leaders agree with the secular west.

Let's not stop with governments, what about the media?  Again, we might look at state controlled media in China, or North Korea.  Or we might look at media owned by capitalist, hyper-rich owners.  Or we might look at 'the mainstream media', which is, apparently, a bad thing.  And completely beholden to the establishment.

And yet this is the media who brought us Watergate, at the time of Nixon.  Who broke the news of secretly smuggling Cruise Missiles into Greenham Common in the time of Thatcher.  Or who railed against the MPs' expenses scandal.  Or who continuously scrutinise Boris Jonson's personal and financial affairs.  A media demonstrably NOT beholden to its leaders.

Outside of that, I need to go local with the UK here.  Any conspiracy, quite aside from the UK government of Boris Johnson's Conservative Party, would have to include the SNP in Scotland, Professor Chris Whitty, Sir Patrick Vallance, Jonathan Van-Tam, all of their subordinates, high-to-middle ranking health professionals under them, high-to-middle ranking civil servants, and thousands of administrators and scientists, not to mention the epidemiologists, virologists, and public health data collectors.

And what about the security services?  Where are the MI5/MI6/KGB defectors (and there are usually a good number) blowing the whistle?

What about the technology which controls our lives.  Apparently this has all been controlled by Bill Gates.  And yet it would also include the cooperation, not only of his old pals at Microsoft, but also his sworn enemies at Apple, needed to get the app on our phones.

So here's the question in short.  Why has this conspiracy happened, how on earth was it perpetrated, and who is responsible who had the power to cover it all up?

Because any conspiracy would require every single one of those nations, those politicians, those public officials, those scientists, those doctors, and those media to be involved, or at least consent to turn a bind eye...

...without a single one of them, anywhere on the planet breaking ranks.  Because none has.

None of those conspiracy theories has come from a country with a different political outlook to most others.  Or a genuine, proven independent reporter.  Or a high-ranking scientists.  Or any of the many tens, if not hundreds of thousands of credible voices which would have been potentially raised throughout the world had this all been a scam.

None of the conspiracies come from data officials in Belgium, or a team of doctors in Bolivia, or civil servants in Chad.

And here's the kicker.  I know that no one can possibly answer the massive, insurmountable weight of evidence I've offered here, but let's suppose they could.

That in itself would in no way prove a conspiracy.  It would only prove that a conspiracy were theoretically possible.  It would prove that it could be planned, perpetrated and hidden, but not that it had ever happened.  It's possible I'm in a conspiracy with Jeremy Corbyn, the manufacturers of Curly Wurly, and the bloke from the Go Compare adverts.  It doesn't mean it's happened.

And despite this lack of evidence, there are people out there prepared to believe conspiracy theories spread by Chuck, a 34 year old posting on FaceBook from his bedroom in his mum's house in West Virginia, who lives on a diet of delivery pizza and Cheerio's, and posts whilst sat in his soiled boxer shorts and t-shirt.

So, before you ever think about mentioning to me that there's any sort of a conspiracy about Covid, be prepared to answer all of the above first.