"When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time"
A striking short speech from diagnostic pathologist Dr Clare Craig on the WHO, the CCP, digital ID and our own government
Dear Church Leaders (and everyone else)
According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Maya Angelou, who died in 2014 aged 86, was…
…an American poet, memoirist, and actress whose several volumes of autobiography explore the themes of economic, racial, and sexual oppression. Her best-known work is the powerful memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969). By the end of her life, she was a world-famous literary figure who had inspired generations of women.
One of her most famous quotes is:
When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first timeHere she is discussing it with Oprah Winfrey in 1997:1
[Winfrey] One of the most important lessons I ever learned from you… is… when people show you who they are, believe them…
[Angelou] Yes, absolutely… a person says to you, “I’m selfish” or “I’m mean” or “I am unkind”… believe them. They know themselves much better than you do…
More often than not… those of us who don’t trust life [experiences] say, “Don’t say a thing like that. You’re not really crazy. You’re not really unkind. You’re not really mean.” And as soon as you say that, the person… shows you… “I told you… I told you I was unkind. So now why are you angry?”
Angelou’s life lesson — which reminds me of Jesus’ saying “By their fruit you will recognise them” — encapsulates a fundamental truth. We should pay attention to what people say and do, and what it reveals about them. We should believe the evidence that we see and hear, and we should remember it.
And her words — “when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time” — form the backbone of a striking 8½ minute speech that diagnostic pathologist Dr Clare Craig recently gave at the Together 4th Anniversary Event held in London:
A transcript with links and references is below.
Maya Angelou said, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”
Tonight I want to talk about the World Health Organization, digital ID, and the institutions that showed us who they are well before most people noticed.
We’ve been told that the next pandemic is guaranteed. In 2009, Professor Phillip Alcabes wrote in Dread, “We’re supposed to be prepared for a pandemic because the flu watchers, who need continued grant funding, must persuade funding agencies of the urgency of a coming plague.”
In 2023, Peter Hotez said covid was “a warm-up act”. In 2025, Jonathan Van-Tam called the next pandemic “a racing certainty”.2 And the WHO’s Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus speaks constantly about “Disease X” — a threat that cannot be named, cannot be described and cannot be questioned, but which he claims justifies the accrual of sweeping powers to the WHO.
They are showing us their incentives and their goals and who they are.
Believe them the first time.
Sadly, for people who’ve been following closely, this isn’t even the first time. To understand why, we have to go back to 2009. The WHO changed their description of a pandemic3 so it no longer required a previously essential element: severity. This was only months before declaring a “swine flu pandemic”. The same discredited doomsayers were there too. Professor Ferguson’s extreme modelling was wildly wrong, just as it was later. The threat was oversold. In 2010, the WHO’s own pandemic chief admitted the declaration was premature.
After the swine flu panic had dissipated, the UK commissioned a review by Dame Deirdre Hine. In her 2010 report, she specifically and directly warned against groupthink, over reliance on modeling, and the use of the term reasonable worst-case scenario, and against shutting out disscent. She showed integrity, and she was ignored. The only recommendation that was adopted was to use behavioural scientists more effectively. Better manipulation was chosen over better evidence.
They showed us their priorities.
Believe them the first time.
For two decades, people have warned about the Chinese Communist Party’s march through the institutions. The CCP has extended its tentacles into universities. They have stolen British intellectual property. They have infiltrated Parliament via interns, including two arrested for suspected espionage before the case was controversially dropped. They’re close to getting control of the Chagos Islands and to putting their embassy over the City of London’s key data cables.
Globally, China has extended its influence across the UN and the WHO. In 2006, Margaret Chan, backed by China, became Director General. In 2017, they lobbied for Tedros, the first WHO director general without a medical degree.4
They showed us their strategy.
Believe them the first time.
Once in office, Tedros showed us who he was. He appointed Robert Mugabe, a brutal dictator, as a “goodwill ambassador”. He recruited Susan Michie,5 a lifelong Communist from the Nudge Unit, to run the WHO’s own nudge unit. Why do we need that? And he overruled his own committee to declare monkeypox a global emergency.6
He showed us who he is.
Believe him the first time.
The evidence for a plan to impose international vaccine passes was set out long before covid. In 2018 an EU council document strongly supported by pharmaceutical industry groups called for an EU citizen digital vaccination card. In other words, digital access to vaccination status at an international level.
In 2021, the WHO released a 99-page specification for digital covid certificates, longer than any WHO document on the so-called pandemic.
Work on it began before any vaccines were authorised. People were labeled not as persons, citizens, or individuals, but as “data subjects” or the dystopian “subjects of care”. The whole document is about using passes to shut people out and revoking them entirely if people do not comply. Yet it says there should be no discrimination based on whether someone presents a pass on a smartphone or a paper card. How very disingenuous.
The stated long-term goal was in its own words “a sustainable solution that can address other existing health system challenges and future pandemics”. Worst of all, instead of countries accessing each other’s databases, the WHO wants a centralised international database.
They showed us the system they are building.
Believe them the first time.
In 2023, the WHO began steps to achieve the next stage: a pandemic treaty and changes to the International Health Regulations. The WHO has little legal power, but enormous soft power. Civil servants defer to it. The media treat its word as final. The public are told divergence is dangerous. Soft power becomes hard pressure.
They proposed:
A global digital identity for every traveller linked to biometrics, travel history, and vaccination status.
Diverting 5% of all health budgets to pandemic preparedness. That’s one pound in every 20 pounds taken from treating the sick and paid to the pandemic industrial complex. When you fund virus hunting, you will find novel viruses.
Removing human rights language. It was proposed to delete the words “full respect for the dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms of persons” — a philosophy based in the sanctity of the individual, replacing it with “equity, inclusivity, and coherence”. These are benign-sounding words, but they represent a completely different value system. Equity without freedom is serfdom or a collectivist system where the individual must make sacrifices for a supposed greater good. In the meantime, coherence can justify almost anything.
They showed us their philosophy.
Believe them the first time.
Covid passes were a dry run for digital IDs. They excluded people from daily life, divided families, turned freedoms into permissions.
Digital ID has shown us what it is.
Believe it the first time.
And the UK’s 10-year contract for 100 million Moderna doses in every single year — far more than we need, shows what they expect.
They are showing us their intentions.
Believe them the first time.
When the WHO pushed these reforms, the strongest objections came from the African group. Botswana spoke for 47 nations. They defended sovereignty. They refused to wave the proposals through. Their values, dignity, sovereignty, caution, and moral seriousness should be recognised. They showed us who they were, and we should be grateful.
Now if you’d heard all this in 2019, it would have been hard to believe. A global traveler database — absurd. Digital ID controlling movement — impossible. Removing human rights language — unthinkable. Diverting 5% of health budgets into virus hunting — nonsensical. Stockpiling a hundred million vaccine doses a year — unnecessary.
And yet here we are.
When someone shows you who they are, believe them.
The WHO has shown us. The CCP has shown us. Digital ID has shown us. Our own government, with its annual ocean of Moderna doses, has shown us too.
Believe them.
Let us not have a second time.
I am struck by how widely Angelou’s principle applies: to people I have never met; to institutions and organisations; and even to concepts, such as digital ID.
And to me those words are also a reminder of how, particularly in the context of the past few years, I have learned — and am still learning — quite a lot about colleagues, neighbours, friends and family. And fellow Christians.
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Dear Church Leaders homepage
Some posts, including a version of this one, can also be found on Unexpected Turns
Revealing Faith: Seeing and believing the revelation of God
The Big Reveal: Christianity carefully considered as the solution to a problem
I’d be interested to hear now what Oprah Winfrey would have to say about e.g. articles like this one:
“We know what’s next, we’re gonna have another major coronavirus pandemic before the end of this decade, before 2030. We’re going to have zoonotic influenza illness… We need to have that recognition that covid-19 unfortunately could be just a warm-up act…”
“I would say now that my personal scientific view is that a future pandemic is a racing certainty…” (at the UK Covid Inquiry — see p136 here)
NB according to Wikipedia, Dr Ghebreyesus — or “Dr Tedros” — is not a medical doctor as such, but has a PhD in community health from the University of Nottingham awarded in 2000 for research on the effects of dams on malaria transmission in the Tigray region of Ethiopia
I am reminded of this short clip (transcript below) from Susan Michie, a Professor of Health Psychology at University College London. In 2020, Michie was a memberof both SAGE and SPI-B. She is an author on three of the first five papers referenced in the 22nd March 2020 SPI-B minutes. And she also happens to be a long-standing member of the Communist Party of Britain.
Here is what she said (emphasis added):
Vaccines are a really important part of the pandemic control, but it’s only one part. The test, trace and isolate system [and] border controls are really essential. And the third thing is people’s behaviour, that is the behaviour of social distancing, of when you’re indoors making sure there’s good ventilation, or, if there’s not, wearing face masks… and hand and surface hygiene. We’ll need to keep these going in the long term. And that will be good not only for covid but also to reduce other…
And when asked by the interviewer, “When you say long term, what do you mean by that? How long…?” her reply is:
I think forever… to some extent…