Of all the bizarre ideas thrown up by the Covid 19 crisis, none astonishes me more than the idea that the restrictions on movement and meeting which have been imposed by the government represent the first steps towards a descent to a totalitarian tyranny. Even though we’ve all moved a stage towards freedom by sending the kids back to school, even though our (hugely successful) vaccination programme suggests a way out, there are still commentators in the national press who seem to believe that we’ll soon be living in a country in which all industries have been nationalised and a strutting policeman can demand to see our papers while we’re out walking the dog.
It’s true I have an advantage here: I’m old enough to have been forced by the state in my youth to spend two years in the army – it was called national service. But have the country’s much younger pundits and opinion-formers never spoken to their parents or grandparents about WW2? Have they not studied any history of the period? If they had they would know that the constraints imposed on personal liberty during the 1940s – which included black-outs, ration books and identity cards – were far more draconian than anything being conceived of today. They would also know that when the war ended the restrictions were removed.
What’s more, I see no signs whatever that our government has any intention of arresting political dissidents as in Hong Kong, shooting them dead as in Myanmar, or poisoning them as in Russia. It must surely be clear to anyone with a bit of sense that, in Britain particularly, the chances of restrictions being enforced after the crisis has passed are vanishingly low. Boris Johnson may have his faults but he is more aware of the importance of civil liberties than many of his predecessors.
So where, then, does the paranoid hysteria come from? The doomsters come in various forms but all share a complete incomprehension of the magnitude of the crisis and a refusal to accept the government’s measures to defeat it – even though they’re very similar to the actions taken by other European countries. At first they complained that the lockdown was too late; now they’re saying it has gone on too long.
Amongst these know-all back-seat drivers are two basic groups, the first of which are the lockdown sceptics or deniers who argue that when the concept is subjected to a proper cost/benefit analysis it is found to do more harm than good. They point to workers in the hospitality industry who, despite support from the government, are being forced into bankruptcy. The crisis has certainly demonstrated the huge importance of pubs and restaurants to a civilised society and the need to bring them back into business as soon as possible.
But the lockdown sceptics are missing a vital point. If lifting or easing the restrictions too fully or too early leads to a surge in Covid 19 cases which overwhelms the NHS, the public will begin to see patients dying in the corridors of overcrowded hospitals. No government would be forgiven for that.
The second group of those forecasting a descent into tyranny are the small government merchants. These are the people who believe that almost all government intervention is wrong and that free, unfettered markets are the cure to all economic ills. It is a philosophy that had led to gormless globalisation, idiotic outsourcing and the abandonment of our vital infrastructure to foreign ownership – but that’s another story.
Grumpy Greybeard 