From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness
A new study claims that more than 50,000 people are estimated to have died across Europe as a result of this summer’s “record-breaking heatwaves”, including 4,354 in the UK – not 4,353 or 4,355, but 4,354!
The claim is based on computer models, programmed to assume higher mortality rates during hot weather. Garbage in / garbage out, in other words.
But why even use models, when the actual mortality data is available?
Now a new study, which does use the data, reveals that, as far as the UK is concerned, there was no such spike in deaths this summer – nobody died because of “the heat”.
Unsurprisingly the new uber-woke Telegraph went big on the original claims, reporting:
More than 50,000 people are estimated to have died across Europe as a result of this summer’s record-breaking heatwaves, according to research.
In the UK alone, researchers estimate there were 4,354 excess deaths this summer.
The number of excess deaths across Europe is double the number recorded in 2025 and it is also far higher than the previous record of 29,000 deaths. This was recorded in 2022 when the continent also endured exceptionally high temperatures, with the mercury hitting 40 degrees celsius for the first time in the UK.
Researchers from Imperial College, London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) looked at 854 urban areas in 30 countries across Europe. Using temperature records and modelling based on the relationship between heat and mortality they estimated the number of heat-related deaths that occurred between June and August.
Because the study only looked at urban areas – making up 40 per cent of the population of the countries studied – researchers believe the number of deaths is likely to be an underestimate.
The claims are not new. In July, for instance, the BBC was peddling similar lies about there being “2700 deaths from the June heatwave”, again based on dodgy modelling. The claims were quickly dismissed by Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson, who made a name for themselves by debunking COVID death projections in 2020.
On a simplistic level, summer is when deaths are at their lowest. If heat is killing people in summer, what is killing much larger numbers of them in spring?
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) carried out a very detailed analysis of mortality rates during the notorious heatwaves in 2022, when temperatures peaked much higher than this summer.
Their conclusions could not have been clearer. Although the number of deaths during hot periods spiked, they quickly fell below average in the following days – something they described as short-term mortality displacement. People who were already close to death simply died a few days earlier than they would have otherwise.
Below are the ONS findings:
Taken across the summer as a whole, the number of deaths was found not to be excessive at all.
New analysis of this summer’s mortality data has now come up with similar results. Deaths did spike in Week 26 and 27, during the end of June heatwave. But they quickly fell back below average during July and August, and into September as well.
This data, by the way, is based on date of death, not date of registration. It can take many months for all deaths to be finally registered and consequently logged by the ONS. For this reason, the data for 2024 and 2025 are as published by the ONS in November 2024 and 2025 respectively. That way, we are comparing like with like.
During the period, the number of deaths this year was 1,555 higher than last year, but 1,318 lower than in 2024, when the summer had been cooler:
The explanation for a lower number of summer deaths last year probably lies in the previous winter, when there was a bad outbreak of flu. As a result, winter deaths in 2024/25 were 3,798 higher than last winter:
We are back with the concept of mortality displacement, described by ONS:
Mortality displacement is a phenomenon by which a period of high mortality can be followed by below-average mortality. Mortality displacement occurs when vulnerable people, such as older people and those who already had medical conditions, die sooner than expected. Therefore, these individuals are not dying in the following days, weeks, or months, where they would likely have died, potentially leading to a lower-than-average period of mortality.
The higher-than-average mortality in the winter of 2024/25 may have led to lower-than-average mortality in the following months. Either way, the differences between deaths in the last three summers are vanishingly small and of no statistical significance.
All this data is obviously for England & Wales, which the ONS treat separately. But the data for Scotland show no spikes at all.
If the Telegraph’s claim about UK heat-related deaths is so provenly wrong, it hardly fills you with confidence that the Europe-wide claims have any more validity.
Such claims, of course, are intended for one purpose only – pushing the Net Zero agenda. That is why the Government’s own UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) continues to peddle the same deceit.
Last month they put out a report claiming 2,200 deaths were associated with cold weather last winter. Using the tried and tested ONS methodology however, the number of excess winter deaths in 2025/26 was many times greater, actually amounting to 24,272.
