So it’s official. Nightclubs were closed last month in three of the UK’s four countries I response to the Omicron surge. At the time, the anti-vaxxers were foaming in the mouth and telling us the whole nation was about to go into a China style lockdown – where even leaving your house without permission was illegal.

Vaccine passports also came into force in England, having already been in place a few months earlier elsewhere. Now, Danny Rampling has been warning us for months now that vaccine passports were a form of apartheid, and that they would soon lead to other developments such as a social credit rating system as being developed in China.

But was he right? Well, England has announced they’re being scrapped from January 27th. Scotland is keeping them for the time being, but has dropped a plan to expand the scheme. Wales is hanging onto them, but is under increasing pressure from Tories and LibDems in the country to drop them – and Northern Ireland is scaling the programme down from January 26th.

So whilst they haven’t gone away entirely, the general direction is they’re basically on the way out. And I cannot for the life of me see the Tories, currently in the most mutinous mood they’ve been in years, agreeing to the introduction of a social credit rating system. Not exactly what the genius that isn’t Rampling has been saying.

As for nightclubs, England reopened theirs on July 19th last year and didn’t close them during the surge. Northern Ireland shut theirs on December 26th, Wales and Scotland closed them the next day. They reopen on January 24th in Scotland, January 26th in Northern Ireland and January 28th in Wales. In other words, they closed for between 4 and 5 weeks.

Yet again, Rampling has been proven wrong. Then again, it’s much of the story over the pandemic for him – especially given how the volte-face from his position in March 2020 appears to be conveniently ignored. Which just leaves one question.

When this blog gets something wrong, corrections and apologies are published acknowledging and rectifying the mistake. So when will we see your mea culpa, Mr Rampling? Over to you…