Mark Dolan: Any boffin who dictates what we can eat should burger off - or they'll get a pizza my mind

People will need to eat less meat, and change their flying habits in order to tackle the climate crisis, this according to the UK's chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance.

Do you not think that this man, has had enough input into our lives for the last year and a half? He and Sir Chris Whitty, the most terrifying double act since The Krays, have been the authors of lockdown policies, which have seen people imprisoned in their homes for months on end, who have presided over a spiralling non-covid death toll from other untreated illnesses and as we discovered yesterday in the budget, have cost the country the best part of half a trillion quid, as a result of the damage caused.

I don't think they are bad people, far from it. I just think they are wrong. I would argue these ruinous policies were unsuccessful, given that we don't appear to have arrested the spread of the virus. We have one of the highest death tolls from Covid in the world.

So did the measures work? And were they merited? A peer reviewed study by Professor Simon Wood suggests cases were falling before each of the three national lockdowns and our per capita death rate is far higher than many countries that didn't lock down at all, like Sweden.

But the likes of Whitty and Vallance haven't been humbled by the data, a glance at which, makes the case for interventions crumble by the day. Cases in Lithuania with vaccine passports and strict mask mandates for example are over 1000 times higher than in restriction-free Sweden, where they have declared the pandemic over. Commentators don’t like you mentioning Sweden, because the truth is inconvenient.

Thankfully, there are other examples – Texas and Florida to name but two. Covid cases in the Sunshine State of Florida are now among the lowest in the United States – and they’ve been restriction free for the best part of a year. And yet there's talk of Plan B low level restrictions here this winter: face masks, social distancing and working from home. Sir Patrick Vallance has said we should be ready to enact plan B if cases rise. Do these people not do self reflection? Are they not aware of data?

And what about the cost? Whitehall officials have told number 10 Plan B would bring a bill of eighteen billion quid. Money – billions borrowed on your behalf – doesn’t seem to matter to these privileged, out of touch scientists, who of course have a handsome pension, and a job for life. Far from being humbled, the likes of Vallance and others have clearly been emboldened by the public spotlight, and he's now wagging his finger about air travel, and your hard earned two weeks in Turkey, that he'd like to see stuffed.

You’d think wouldn't you, that having been the face of these Covid measures, that have had such an impact on the country and our lives, that these civil servants would think twice, about continuing to dictate to us about how we live our lives. You’d think they’d give us a break. But they’ve got a taste for it now.

Drunk on the power. As we reach the tail end of this pandemic, power must be transferred back to you the people and away from these unelected, technocrats. We’ve seen what happens when scientific pen pushers, run the country. Eye watering debt, a wrecked economy, an NHS waiting list of 12 million people and a spiralling non-Covid death toll.

And how is YOU not having a full English breakfast going to save the planet whilst India, America, China and Brazil continue to consume and pollute with abandon? And I've got profound concerns about Vallance’s wording - it was very clever. Very casual. Eat a “bit less meat” – sounds reasonable - but we've been here before. Three weeks to flatten the curve. Remember that. " A bit less meat" is so-called nudge messaging, in which you're being softened up to get used to an idea, which will then become the norm.

All of the instruments of control and psychological manipulation, that have been deployed during the pandemic, and explained brilliantly in Laura Dodsworth’s book “A state Of Fear”, will simply be transferred over to the green agenda. And just wait, because it won't be long before the first government scientist, suggests occasional lockdowns, to save the planet. Three weeks to flatten the, I don’t know, North Pole.

So having had a taste of this manipulation and control, and having seen the consequences of “the science”, I no longer trust the messaging of these people, and I certainly don’t trust their policies. For so many “the science”, is a four letter word. We have apparently been presented with a "consensus" about how to tackle covid, which was anything but. Ask the signatories to the Great Barrington Declaration, who consider lockdowns to be the biggest public health cock up in history.

They didn’t follow the science, even though they themselves, are some of the greatest scientists on the planet. Professors Jay Bhattacharya, Sunetra Gupta and Martin Kulldorf among them. And many scientists have been too scared to speak out, fearing for their careers. So I’d like an open debate about the science around meat and global warming. One thing is beyond debate however. We are omnivores.

As well as veggies, nuts and a bit of fruit, we are supposed to eat meat, fish and dairy, which provide a ready source of protein. This diet, based around animal protein, has got us to where we are today as a species. I doubt we would have reached the summit of the natural kingdom, off the back of oat milk, vegetarian sausages and soya bacon.

Grass fed cows, which is what we have in this country, live on terrain which is uninhabitable for humans, they eat grass which is inedible to us, and they water and nourish the land with their waste product. It’s called regenerative farming. Sounds pretty environmentally friendly to me. Sounds better than the airmiles, packaging and the million obscure ingredients you get in a vegan alternative.

Salad and veggies are great, but too much of the plant-based diet, is processed food hell, which will make us even sicker than we already are. Which is why this push to go plant-based, is a load of bull. And I'm pushing back, in anticipation, of this assault on our dinner plate. Any boffin that tries to dictate to us, about what WE choose to eat, will get a pizza my mind. They can burger off. This is GB News.