News Round-Up: Why More Wind Energy Means More Natural Gas Consumption, BBC's Treatment of the Excess Deaths Debate in UK Parliament and Record Low Trust in Media
Every week, the editorial team of Freedom Research compiles a round-up of news that caught our eye, or what felt like under-reported aspects of news deserving more attention.
Over the past week, the following topics attracted our attention:
Four out of 10 Americans distrust the mass media.
Excess deaths debate in UK Parliament.
Head of UK gas grid operator: we need gas or we will face blackouts.
A Northern Irish GP suspension extended for pointing to vaccine damage back in 2021.
US Senate's measure to ban federal mask mandates.
Four out of 10 Americans distrust the mass media
According to a recent poll by Gallup, only 32% of Americans say they trust the mass media and believe these report the news in a complete, fair, and accurate way. That 32% includes both those who say they trust the news media a great deal and those who say they trust it a fair amount. 32% is the lowest figure in the history of Gallup's polling in this territory. It also shows a downward trend compared to previous years, with trust at 36% in 2021 and 34% in 2022.

According to the survey, 29% of respondents said they did not trust the mass media very much, while a record 39% said they did not trust it at all. Compared to 2016, this figure is up by 12 percentage points.
Gallup has been conducting similar polls since 1972 and has done so annually since 1997.
Excess deaths debate in UK Parliament: BBC Parliament channel uses 'corrective' pro-vaccine subtitles while MP Andrew Bridgen talks about excess mortality
While excess mortality was a constant public focus during the Covid pandemic, the fact is that excess mortality is still high in various countries, yet it is no longer a major topic of public debate. On Friday, October 20, Andrew Bridgen, a member of the UK House of Commons, raised the issue in parliament. "We have experienced more excess deaths since July 2021 than in the whole of 2020. Unlike during the pandemic, however, those deaths are not disproportionately of the old. In other words, the excess deaths are striking down people in the prime of life, but no one seems to care," he said.
Bridgen pointed out that there were just over 14,000 excess deaths among people under 65 in the UK before the increased vaccination, i.e. from April 2020 to the end of March 2021. "However, since that time, there have been more than 21,000 excess deaths, ignoring the registration delay problem, and the majority of those deaths—58% of them—were not attributed to Covid," he said.
In fact, excess mortality also rose among the eldest, compared to the data from 2020. According to Bridgen, there were 8,000 excess deaths among people aged 85 and over in the 12 months starting from July 2020, 4% more than expected. In the 12 months starting from July 2022, however, there were already 18,000 excess deaths in this age group, more than 9% above the expected level.
Bridgen pointed out that in 2020, excess mortality occurred in the older age groups and mortality was lower than expected in the younger age groups. From 2022, however, the opposite is true, he said, with excess mortality of 9% among the under-50s and 5% among the over-75s.
Bridgen linked the excess deaths to Covid vaccines. "Studies from the Netherlands, Germany and the whole world each show that the highest mortality after vaccination was seen in the most heavily vaccinated regions," he said. He also cited the example of the UK in terms of ambulance calls statistics. "Ambulance calls for life-threatening emergencies were running at a steady 2,000 calls a day until the vaccine roll-out. From then, they rose to 2,500 daily, and calls have stayed at that level since," he stated. "So we need to ask: what are people dying of? Since 2022, there has been an 11% excess in ischemic heart disease deaths and a 16% excess in heart failure deaths," Bridgen added.
Maria Caulfield, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of the State for Health and Social Care, confirmed in her response that excess mortality is indeed high in the country, but she disagreed with the conclusions on vaccines. "There has been a combination of factors contributing to the increase in excess deaths, including, in the last year, high flu prevalence, the ongoing challenges of Covid-19, a strep A outbreak and conditions such as heart disease, which he touched on, diabetes and cancer. Because we had had virtually a lockdown of routine health services over a two-year period, many people are now coming forward with increased morbidity and mortality as a result," Caulfield said.
Bridgen has also spoken in the British Parliament on vaccines and their safety in the past. As on all previous occasions, he spoke to a near-empty chamber – other MPs either had no interest or simply boycotted such a debate. However, such speeches are important, as they are then recorded in the official minutes and, as a parliamentary debate, can be shared more freely on social media, for example, without fear of being deleted.
Among other things, the BBC's Parliament channel broadcasts such Parliament debates. However, the BBC decided to behave in a completely unusual way during the broadcast of this debate. During Bridgen's speech, various messages and comments on vaccines were shown on the screen. For example, "The NHS says COVID-19 vaccines used in the UK are safe and the best protection from getting seriously ill with the disease." Another one was, "The NHS says measles and mumps are rising in England due to a drop in the number of children being given the MMR vaccines."

Yet another example: "Official NHS guidance states that government-administered vaccines are safe and often essential for public health."
This is extraordinary, as the BBC has never done this before. However, the BBC does not deny that there are excess deaths – earlier this year they wrote that 2022 was the worst year for excess deaths in 50 years. Regarding the Scottish statistics published this week on last winter’s mortality, the BBC said it was the worst in 30 years.
Head of UK gas grid operator: we need gas or we will face blackouts
Jon Butterworth, head of National Gas, the company that operates the UK's gas network, says that the growing share of wind and solar power will not reduce dependence on gas, but will actually increase it in the coming decades, reports The Telegraph. "In 2022, the wind didn’t blow enough or at all for 262 days. And in those 262 days, we would have had rolling blackouts, or a full blackout across the UK if it wasn’t for gas," he explained. Butterworth believes Britain will still need gas in 2040 to maintain a steady electricity supply. "I actually think we’ll be moving more gas but we’ll be moving gas to power stations to make electricity rather than to homes," he said.

Currently, 86% of households in England use gas to keep their homes warm. As part of the government's drive towards Net Zero, one of the targets is to reduce gas consumption and thus homes are being encouraged to switch to heat pumps. Last week, John Armitt, head of The National Infrastructure Commission, which advises the government, called for the UK gas network to be decommissioned at a cost of around £70 billion (€80.5 billion) in order to encourage the switch to heat pumps and meet the so-called climate targets.
But heat pumps need electricity on the days when there is no wind as well. Butterworth foresees a future where millions of 'green' heat pumps will be running, but requiring non-green electricity generated by gas power stations. "That is actually far less efficient than burning gas in your house. Domestic gas boilers are about 90pc efficient, but the best power station is about 50pc efficient," he said, adding that getting rid of gas dependency in the UK would prove harder than many think.
At the beginning of August, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak gave the go-ahead for hundreds of new permits to produce oil and gas from North Sea deposits. The rationale was that gas is needed in the country. "It is actually better for the environment because there is no point in importing stuff from halfway around the world with two to three times the carbon footprint of the stuff we have got at home. That makes absolutely no sense," Sunak noted.
A Northern Irish GP suspension extended for pointing to vaccine damage back in 2021
In September 2021, the Medical Practitioners' Tribunal Service, which hears complaints against doctors in the UK, imposed an 18-month suspension from practicing on Dr Anne McCloskey, a GP from Londonderry in Northern Ireland. McCloskey, a medical doctor with a 40-year long career, spoke out on the issue of vaccinating young people in a video posted on social media in August 2021, saying there was insufficient evidence that the Covid vaccine was safe for young people. She noted that she was “distraught” by the number of young people who have been “damaged” by these “unlicensed and unapproved” vaccines. She added that many young people were “coerced, bribed or bullied” to take the vaccine.
Despite these statements being correct, she was given a suspension and, strangely enough, this suspension was now extended by another six months. The Manchester-based tribunal service found that McCloskey's conduct as a doctor fell below the standards expected of a doctor and constituted serious misconduct. Tribunal chairwoman Becky Miller said McCloskey's comments in 2021 came at a time when the public was vulnerable in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic and her messages caused alarm among the public. At the same time, the medical tribunal noted that there had been no previous complaints against McCloskey during her 40-year career. McCloskey herself did not attend the hearing. During a hearing in court this summer to challenge her suspension, she pointed out that 20,000 people had signed a petition calling for her suspension to be lifted, in other words calling for an end to such bullying.
US Senate's measure to ban federal mask mandates
The US Senate on Wednesday approved a proposal that would block the Department of Transportation from using federal funds to enforce mask mandates on public transport, writes The Epoch Times. The ban, which will apply to passenger airlines, trains, buses, and all other forms of public transport that receive federal funds, will last until the end of the current fiscal year, i.e. for the next 11 months.

The amendment, proposed by Republican Ohio State Senator J.D. Vance, was passed by a vote of 59-38, which shows that many Democrats voted in its favour alongside Republicans. Vance said the mask mandates caused a lot of problems for people. "It caused problems for our kids. It caused developmental delays for school children. It caused a lot of rancor and a lot of division within our common American family. If people want to wear masks, of course, they should be able to. But if people don’t want to wear masks on airplanes, on transit, they should have that option as well," he said.