... Was not in 2020.

I know many readers are abundantly aware of that fact, having been in it for many previous years or decades themselves, and would consider me a relative 'newbie' for first becoming involved around 2014. Fair enough. I salute your veteran status - and indeed, Mr AF himself is one such person.

He's been involved in "truther" issues since the 1990s, and, amongst other things, was once instrumental in a plan to bring the then rookie turquoise truther, David Icke, to a dive bar in Oldham to give a talk. Alas, Mr AF never got to attend this talk (and only a total of about 15 people did), as he himself worked in said bar, and the 'perks' of such a position meant, on the day of the talk, he was too hungover to go... He doesn't mind me telling you that, but is very keen that I impress upon you that he has long since stopped being a fan of Mr Icke and no longer possesses his books (though may still occasionally be seen in dive bars).

I myself first got actively involved in the truth movement about twelve years ago, via vaccine issues (after nearly being force-vaccinated at university), joining groups like Arnica and SaneVax (not to imply I endorse what the acronym SANE stands for), and connecting with like-minded people on Facebook.

I still have quite a few readers who remember me from the Facebook days, back from around the time I launched my own vaccine website, STRIVE (Student and Teacher Research Initiative for Vaccine Education) in 2015. This site was founded, based on my own experiences, to help give young people accurate information on vaccines and their risks.

The site's now offline, partly due to the fact the web providers hosting it collapsed, but I also wouldn't resurrect it now, as my beliefs around the nature of illness have evolved since I created it - but, just to evidence its existence, here's its Twitter account which I began in 2016 (and if my hate-fans want to tediously trawl through it looking for "gotchas", I'll save you the trouble - yes, I followed people like Aseem Malhotra and RFK back then, and believed they were genuine, so I promoted their work. As mentioned, my beliefs have evolved quite a lot since the STRIVE days).

I was particularly active in opposing the HPV vaccine, involved with groups like AHVID and REGRET, helping with mailing exercises to schools warning them of the risks of this jab, and writing to some of its more aggressive promoters.

I made several real-world friends through these channels (hi JB, AW, S&J) - as well as acquiring a spouse - so I know how thriving and active "the movement" was for many years prior to 2020.

I mention this because I have noticed a distinct trend amongst certain high-profile newcomers ('newcomer' meaning post-2020 joinees) to frame the truth movement as if it began in 2020 with covid. They will repeatedly say things like "oh, I've known him or her since the beginning, right back to the covid days", or frame themselves as "veterans" because they've been "at this since 2020".

Tellingly, the sovereign saint of psyops herself, Lucy Connolly, referred in April 2026 to "our original Twitter crew", denoting the team of amplified, interlinked Twitter accounts that suddenly dominated the alternative scene from 2020 onwards. With this carefully worded statement, Connolly is once again emphasising the idea that the truth movement only began in 2020, with the advent of her 'crew', and that there was nothing before that.

I think this mischaracterisation is, often, less down to ignorance or even arrogance, but rather, that it is intentional revisionism to erase the real history of the truth movement, and many of the people who were significant in it - people who were speaking out about vaccines, psyops, corruption and more for many years or decades predating "covid".

The new breed of appointed "leaders" who swept to power in 2020 (more on them later) wanted you to believe that nothing and no-one came before them, because if you knew that - if you knew there was a robust and well-established movement of anti-establishment truth seekers long before 2020 - you might reasonably start to question, "hang on, if there are people who have been exposing the truth for years, why are they not being platformed and promoted, why are we expected to defer to these random newcomers as authorities instead?"

So, to prevent this, the truth movement was reframed as a 2020 invention, inspired by covid.

It wasn't.

It existed a very long time before that.

Was it perfect in its previous guise?

No, it was not. It was beset by all the usual issues that plague large group movements, and as I detailed here, so of course there were toxic people, arguments, fallings out, and so on, just as there still are today.

Was it a 'closed shop', hostile to newcomers, or putting them through somer sort of wildly demanding 'purity test' in order to join?

No, it was not. Like most politicised movements, the truth movement was always keen to spread the word and welcome newcomers, and there was no 'test' to join (other than being sure to get your round in at the pub, the requisite standard for joining any British-based group).

Things changed in 2020. In many ways, for the better. "Truth" went more mainstream, and being anti-vax became far less of a fringe position, with legions of "respectable" people ultimately announcing they would never vaccinate again after the covid fiasco.

More people than ever - perhaps more than at any other time in history - started questioning the establishment, and began to consider, for the first time, that governments aren't merely "incompetent", but that they lie to and harm populations on purpose.

This represented a huge mass awakening, a potentially revolutionary period, and, as such, was something the original truth movement had been hoping to galvanise for a long time. It had always been felt that, "if we could wake enough people up, then things would really change".

That statement may very well be true, but the problem is, if it is, then the establishment thinks so too, which is why, upon the advent of "covid" (which they knew would wake many more people up), they went all-out to infiltrate the truth movement in a particularly intensive new way.

Of course, there were always infiltrators - there always are, in any significant, anti-establishment group - as well as some well-known "controlled opposition" figures, and people in the movement were aware of that: it just simply wasn't as extensive as it is now. We rarely discussed controlled opposition at meet-ups before 2020; now, you'd be forgiven for thinking that, at times, the truth movement discusses nothing else.

This change isn't because the respective members of the movement became more paranoid: it's because the movement became more infiltrated. It's a rational response.

That doesn't mean it's a perfect response, and that innocent people aren't sometimes judged and smeared as infiltrators when they're not; of course that happens. Just like innocent people get wrongly convicted of crimes. But the fact that wrongful convictions sometimes happen doesn't mean that our justice system is irrationally "paranoid" where it comes to looking at suspicious evidence surrounding a person, especially someone with known past convictions, and using it to form a view.

Equally, if there's credible reason to suspect someone in this movement is doing deliberate harm, especially if that person has past form for working for "the enemy" - such as the police, government, pharmaceutical industry, etc. - it's only sane and sensible that people in a movement founded to challenge and defy these institutions, and the dangerous practises they foist on society, should be sceptical.

This isn't "purity testing". It's not the purges. Everyone you don't like isn't Hitler. It's simply exercising the precautionary principle of - within a movement known to be heavily infiltrated - looking at someone's current behaviour and past activities, and using it to come to an informed view.

It is, of course, entirely possible that someone who's worked for, for example, the police, has come to genuinely reject the institution, and now wishes to whistleblow on all its deceitful and corrupt practises. So, of course, it would be completely wrong to apply a blanket policy of "he or she is ex-police and therefore can never be trusted".

At the same time, if someone once worked for the police, and is currently behaving in a subversive way, that seems deliberately designed to have destructive effects, derail narratives, and silence sceptics, then we might well suspect that the person's involvement with the police isn't quite as past-tense as they might like us to think.

Essentially, it's about remaining appropriately vigilant, without descending into irrational paranoia, and that's a perfectly possible balance to strike. Cats do it all the time. They're relaxed and at ease, sunbathing in the garden, responsive to friendly passers-by - but equally, they're always scanning their environment for predators, and will immediately take the appropriate action if they detect a threat.

So, what particularly makes my inner feline twitch its whiskers is the scenario involving those people who have worked in, and greatly profited from, ruthlessly destructive industries, suddenly taking up the mantle of 'truth' in 2020 (or, not infrequently, later), and then promptly deciding we should all defer to them as heroic trailblazing leaders - a classic example being Andrew Bridgen.

Andrew Bridgen was, up until 2024, making a fortune as a mainstream politician, not just with his generous tax-payer-funded salary - in 2024, the basic annual salary for an MP was £91,346 - but with hefty expenses claims and lots of lucrative "gifts" from wealthy friends, as well.

He was in government when the "covid" pantomime began, and voted for both lockdown and mandatory vaccination, as late as July 2021. He also pictured himself getting vaccinated (at "Masons" pharmacy, of all places), encouraging his constituents to follow suit.

Is it subsequently possible Mr Bridgen had a sudden, entirely genuine Damascene conversion, based purely on ethics and truth, and that his change of heart had nothing to do with the huge sums funnelled his way by his (as his ex-wife calls him) "go-to multi-millionaire", Jeremy Hosking?

Sure, it's possible.

It's just not very likely, is it?

(It became even less likely after he was pictured having a boozy pub dinner with fake conning convict, Lucy Connolly.)

Nevertheless, Mr Bridgen not only saunters into the truth movement, after many years of being a typical money-grubbing Tory politician who voted to plunge 1) the country into lockdown and 2) lethal injections into people's arms, but he expects to immediately be able to take up a leadership position in it, too.

If you fell for "covid" to the extent you were ever pro the vaccine and lockdown, you wouldn't be the obvious first choice for a leadership role in a movement that, from the start, vigorously opposed both, although it is perfectly possible you could prove your mettle over time and rise to such a position.

If, however, you weren't merely "pro" these things, but you used your powerful position to actively force them on other people, as Andrew Bridgen did by voting for them in parliament, then you should be disqualified from any and all "truther" leadership roles forever. We must always remember that the covid restrictions and vaccine mandates were not inevitable or unavoidable. They were not imposed on us by the WHO or Bill Gates. Rather, they happened because of what 650 specific people in parliament voted for: and Andrew Bridgen was one of those people.

He claimed he voted for mandatory vaccines because of "the science" which then "changed", but needless to say, science has nothing to do with it. If you don't know that force-medicating people (and healthy people at that) is wrong - regardless of "science" - then you should never have any kind of prominent position in any movement based on personal sovereignty and ethics.

That's just obvious.

However, despite these facts, and Bridgen's distinct lack of qualifications for the role, he is relentlessly amplified and promoted to us as a leader - as are several of his highly questionable orbiters.

Those readers who've followed me for a while may remember that, back in 2021, one of Bridgen's later disciples (this was slightly before he came on the scene) made a very public and aggressive threat to "sue me for defamation" because I remarked on Facebook that I thought a protest stunt this person had been involved in was staged.

I laughed at the ludicrous cry-bully threat, but other people were not laughing. They took this person's threat very seriously, and I was getting private messages from online friends, telling me they were really worried for me, because this person was deadly serious, had the resources to sue me, and was definitely going to do it.

"Thanks for your concern, but they're really not," I said. "This is just a tedious fear-mongering tactic to shut down free speech by making people too frightened of being sued to speak out. Unfortunately, it seems to be working."

Not on me, but on the many people who witnessed this person's theatrical carryings-on, and believed them.

The person's name was - and indeed still is - Fiona Rose Diamond, aka Fiona Hine. Most readers will be familiar with her, because she's been relentlessly high-profile since the "covid" chapter began, including receiving extensive press coverage and appearing on Sky News.

Fiona Rose Diamond / Fiona Hine claims to have been arrested 16 times, and, more recently, reports she was apprehended by the police for having a conversation on a train.

This alleged event, which was quite high-profile and widely promoted, could easily be construed as another way of intentionally fomenting fear to shut down free speech, just as her fake threats to sue me were. As regular readers know, I think all these high-profile "free speech arrest" stories are fake, and are seeded into the movement by fake dissidents to scare real ones into silence.

Five years later, Fiona Rose Diamond / Fiona Hine is still after me (not currently threatening to sue, though), and continues to rant about me to others, including trying to put quite well-known voices off sharing my work, by ferociously fuming about me in the comments. I've been alerted to the most recent incidence of this by several friends, and friends of friends, so thanks to you all.

Fiona Rose Diamond / Fiona Hine takes particular exception to my phrase, "if you know their name, they're in the game", because she appears to think it implicates her.

Before today, I've never once mentioned Fiona in any of my articles, including the recent one she decided to fulminate about, but despite this fact, she has nevertheless been on a years-long campaign to try and silence and/or smear me, whilst claiming it is me who is the antagonist, because I have "dared" to come up with a catchphrase that she doesn't like: "if you know their name, they're in the game". I've never stated this phrase specifically applies to her, however, she keeps getting enraged about it and implying that it does, so make of that what you will.

Fiona appeared to come out of nowhere in 2020 and rose to prominence very quickly, headlining protests and other events and being seen as "a leader", including getting significant MSM press attention from very early on. Her alleged June 2020 arrest was covered in the press, as was her reported arrest in September 2021, where her 'Covileaks' website was publicised, whilst the iPaper described her in February 2022 as a "well-known anti-lockdown activist". One of her most recent protests, regarding Digital ID, garnered extensive coverage in the Daily Mail.

Meanwhile, The Independent dedicated an entire feature-length piece to her in 2022, describing her as a "key ringleader",

Fiona has 94,000 followers on Facebook and (despite only beginning her current account in October 2022), over 50,000 on Twitter.

Why was this woman so well-known from so early on? Why were her alleged arrests reported by the press as early as June 2020? Why did major newspapers like The Independent profile her and tell you all about her work, thus bringing it to the attention of thousands who would never otherwise have heard of it?

Who knows: I certainly don't.

In particular, I have no idea what qualified her to so quickly be appointed as a "leader" in a movement she appears to have had no involvement with whatsoever prior to 2020. Theatrical arrest stunts may provide sensationalist copy for the newspapers, but they don't actually achieve anything positive or productive for the person getting arrested, nor for the freedom movement in general, and I've talked about this before.

Arrest is neither trivial nor pleasant nor without lasting consequences, so portraying it as some impressive, even glamorous, event that marks someone out as a hero, is a very dangerous message to foment. Having an arrest on your record can severely derail your life, even if you're not charged. It's not a cool dissident badge of honour: it's getting your cards marked and limiting your future potential, whilst having zero benefits for you or anyone else. Real leaders don't - or they shouldn't - encourage arrest or try to frame it as somehow aspirational or impressive.

It is entirely possible to effectively challenge the establishment without being detained by its agents in a police cell (where they can take your photograph, fingerprints, and DNA samples by force) - and this is the approach that should be encouraged by responsible and authentic leadership figures. Arrest can't always be avoided, but it should never be encouraged or glamourised, and anybody prepared to risk it should ensure they are fully informed about what it really entails, and what the future consequences can be.

This being the case, why has Fiona Rose Diamond / Fiona Hine been installed into such a prominent position, when there were many more established and experienced candidates who would be far better placed to occupy leadership roles - and who have acquired a little more tactical nouse than to get themselves arrested 16 times?

Having surveyed all the high-profile "arrests", and studying the people who allege to experience them, contrasted with the vast majority of people who don't, I have come to strongly suspect these "arrests" are, in many cases, staged, in order to give fake dissidents credibility. The vast, overwhelming majority of people are able to regularly attend protests and engage in other activism, yet never get arrested.

What I find particularly suspect about these characters is not simply that much more experienced and knowledgeable people have been abruptly cast aside for this new breed of nouveau conspiracist "leader", but how little interest certain newcomers display in those that came before them, and how suspicious that looks.

If you're genuinely trying to break into a new industry, you display interest in those who are already embedded in it, in order to learn from them and help augment your own path: this is the very essence of the apprenticeship or the internship. It's how people learn new things. It's not about thinking more experienced people are perfect paragons who never make mistakes, it's simply about acknowledging that they know more than you, are more connected than you, and therefore, that learning from them is vital if you want to progress.

The only situation in which this wouldn't be vital is if you weren't entering a new industry in a genuine way. If you weren't really starting out from the bottom, but rather, you'd been seeded into the industry by powerful people with an agenda. You therefore would have no need to learn from others - and would have no interest in doing so - because that's not what your mission requires. You're an agent who will be installed exactly where your employers need you to be, without ever having to put the graft in to get there.

Like everyone who has a platform in this movement, I have at times been accused of being an agent myself. I'm not, but I accept that if you do speak out, you're going to get accused of that at times (sometimes by people who really think it, sometimes by people who simply want to smear you), and you have to decide how you're going to deal with it. Complete silence is one option - and wholly appropriate, in some circumstances: fly-by-night trolls making ludicrous claims on Twitter, and so on. But if the accusations seem credible, then silence isn't usually your best bet - it can make you look guilty, even if you're not. I addressed some of the accusations made against me (including some of the sillier ones) here.

Leading on from this, I remember watching a Netflix show where the protagonist was accused of being the culprit of a historical crime: he denied it, but would give no further explanation. He just kept saying "I don't have to justify myself to anyone".

That's true: you don't.

The thing is that innocent people tend to want to.

He turned out to be guilty.

So, while I'm not suggesting everyone who "woke up" in 2020 (or later) is by definition suspect (far from it, the vast majority are entirely genuine), I do think it's relevant to look at "truth trajectories". It's important to consider that a person coming out of nowhere in 2020 and instantly acquiring a leadership position and MSM attention, whilst displaying little or no interest in those that came before them - even trying to smear and discredit them - is highly suspect.

A usual trajectory for someone who isn't being artificially amplified, and whose success and visibility has been organically acquired through their own efforts, is to toil away at their craft for years, gradually building up a body of work and connections, and becoming increasingly well-known over a period of time. That's the general trajectory of success for pretty much any field you can think of, and it's extraordinarily unusual to enter any industry or movement and go straight in at the top - to become very visible and very influential immediately. When that does happen, we've certainly got very good reason to suspect that powerful people may be pulling strings behind the scenes.

It took me the best part of a decade of being active in the truth movement before I started to get any serious traction in it - before I started to get invited on podcasts and the like. I'm not saying that's therefore the benchmark, and it has to take everyone that long - I wasn't doing it full-time, and others may have more resources at their disposal than I did, or be starting from a stronger position (I had all of 253 friends on Facebook when I first started speaking out, and that was my entire audience).

What I am saying is that, for highly dubious characters to sweep to prominence from nowhere in 2020, and then to spend their subsequent time casting aspersions on those who have been at this significantly longer than they have - people with a long-term audience and genuine "grassroots" credentials - isn't a good look. It's inevitably going to make others question your credibility. Which, potentially, is exactly what they should be doing.

And seriously: if you've nothing to hide and you're the real deal, why the theatrical outrage that people should dare question your sincerity? Why act like it's SO RIDICULOUS for you to be suspected - why is it? Everyone gets that accusation at some point, which is understandable in a movement known to be heavily infiltrated, so why should you be exempt? Especially if you have known flags surrounding you, like being platformed repeatedly by the MSM.

Put bluntly, why shouldn't you answer legitimate questions put to you in good faith from the audience you depend on to have a voice?

This is the truth movement. It's all about the truth. And that quantity, famously, does not fear investigation.

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