1/. Two months ago I was strolling along, my head in the clouds, when I stumbled through a mysterious portal into strange new world: a world of political intrigue where the ground never stood still

The background is laid out in these interwoven threads, but I’ll sum up briefly https://twitter.com/stefsimanowitz/status/1252354324136521736

2/. On 8 March, I was talking #coronavirus with a friend & she said @BorisJohnson had floated a theory that we could #TakeItOnTheChin!

I tracked down the clip, tweeted it & it went viral.

A week later, @peston revealed the govt’s #HerdImmunity strategy.

3/. Herd immunity is a form of indirect protection from infectious disease that occurs when a large % of a population becomes immune, whether through previous infections or vaccination.

Without a vaccine it is, by definition, NOT a preventative measure.

4/. Herd immunity makes sense as an outcome but NOT as a strategy.

On 12/3, briefed by No.10, @Peston wrote: “The strategy of the UK govt is to allow the virus to pass through the entire population so that we acquire herd immunity.”

On 26/3, Hunt said:

5/. Surely the govt strategy couldn’t really have been to delay lockdown to allow #COVID19 to spread so as to achieve herd immunity?

It seems unthinkable

But some prefer this approach to lockdown & argue the economy must come 1st. https://twitter.com/stefsimanowitz/status/1241315926592696321?s=21 https://twitter.com/StefSimanowitz/status/1241315926592696321

6/. Some scientists were speculating that herd immunity was still the strategy.

Then I was tipped off about the PM’s speech from 3 Feb.

In it he warns against allowing #coronavirus to trigger a reaction that could do “real & unnecessary economic damage.”

7/. Some people have credited me with “finding” the #GreenwichSpeech.

But I didn’t.

It is was in plain sight all along.

Every senior political journalist had been there for this big post-Bexit media moment & they had all written about this very “Britain as Superman” passage.

8/. The #GreenwichSpeech clip went viral (1m views in 24hrs) but, like the #TakeItOnTheChin clip, was ignored by MSM.

@guardian mentioned it in a timeline,
@BylineTimes did a piece & @peterjukes called it “the smoking gun”

But on Friday, that changed...

9/. Three weeks after the clip had gone viral & three months after the PM made the speech, the Scotland editor of @spectator quotes the passage in full & writes:

“In a big picture sense, one may agree with the broad thrust but, ye gods, doesn’t it look painfully misjudged now?”