Six years ago today, on March 23, 2020, then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the first UK-wide Covid lockdown.
It was the most draconian restriction of civil liberties in modern British history and we are still living with the disastrous consequences today.
What began as a short period of effective house arrest to prevent the spread of the virus morphed into a prolonged period of enforced stasis from which Basket Case Britain has still not recovered.
Many of the problems blighting not just the economy but society as a whole can be traced back to lockdown.
To be fair, at the outset no one knew anything about Covid-19, although fevered speculation was rife. We did know for certain that elsewhere it had already claimed hundreds, possibly thousands, of lives.
So when Boris announced a brief three-week shutdown to ‘flatten the sombrero’ we complied willingly. If we exercised restraint and stayed home we would save lives and protect the NHS from being overwhelmed.
Even confirmed sceptics like me went along with it at first. Frankly, we knew too little about the virus so we simply couldn’t be sure what to think. When Boris contracted Covid and hovered at death’s door, we were all spooked.
But as three weeks turned into three months, serious doubts began to creep in. It soon became apparent that we were in for a long haul. The Government was hiding behind ‘the science’ and had no idea what to do next.
Then prime minister Boris Johnson addresses the nation from 10 Downing Street as he announces the start of the Covid-19 Lockdown on March 23, 2020
As they doubled down on freedom of movement and assembly, whatever faith I’d initially had in their cautious judgment evaporated and then turned into outright hostility.
Worse, vested interests had started to capitalise on the Covid confusion to advance their own selfish agendas. One of the predictions I did get right was that ‘green’ fanatics would co-opt social distancing to launch a vicious and prolonged anti-car campaign. Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, 20mph limits, carpeting the country with deserted bike lanes, all backed by exorbitant fines and driving bans, are now par for the course.
I also told you that once the restrictions were eased, the Warden Hodges tendency would draw up a whole new series of curbs on our liberties. There would be nothing normal about the so-called ‘New Normal’. Temporary measures have a nasty habit of becoming permanent. And so it has proven.
The police behaved abominably, enthusiastically committing frequent abuses of power too widespread to repeat here in detail.
But who could forget them sending up drones to track dog walkers in the countryside breaching curfew, arresting women for drinking coffee in the open air, fining sunbathers and, shamefully, handcuffing a 73-year-old woman and throwing her in the back of a patrol car for the heinous ‘crime’ of taking her 97-year-old mother out of a care home for a cup of tea and a cream cake.
Officers were dispatched to pubs and restaurants to measure pizza slices and determine whether or not sausage rolls constituted a ‘substantial meal’ within the meaning of the hastily drawn-up new laws.
Yet while the enforcement of these ludicrous restrictions was bad enough, the real long-term damage was done by furlough and the ‘temporary’ instruction to work from home (WFH) wherever possible.
The idea of briefly paying people to stay at home during the pandemic was superficially attractive, compassionate even. But it soon became seen as an absolute entitlement. Money For Nothing And Your Chips For Free is now a way of life.
We are still living with the disastrous consequences of the Covid restrictions today, writes Richard Littlejohn
Littlejohn predicted that fanatics would co-opt social distancing to launch a vicious an anti-car campaign, leading to Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, 20mph limits, and countless bike lanes
It looks as though, if the Iran ‘pause’ doesn’t bring peace, we could be staring down the barrel of another Covid-style lockdown, writes Richard Littlejohn
Today, there are nine million people of working age officially ‘economically inactive’, with another 3,000 a day signing off sick with pretend illnesses such as ‘mental elf ishoos’, no questions asked. Covid persuaded a vast section of the population that the State would always provide for their every need.
Consequently, the benefits bill has gone through the roof and, under the law of unintended consequences, millions of immigrants have been imported by employers to fill jobs British citizens are unwilling to do any more.
Why would they bother working when they can live the life of Riley on benefits at the expense of the dwindling number of people still prepared to get out of bed, do an honest day’s work and pay taxes?
WFH is seen as a ‘yuman rite’, especially in the sclerotic public sector, with staff refusing to turn up to the office more than three days a week – if at all. Commuter stations are practically deserted on Mondays and especially Fridays.
The welfare bill has exploded and as a nation we now have debts no honest man could pay, to take a line from Bruce Springsteen’s Atlantic City. Rachel from Complaints is borrowing £150billion just to pay the interest on our accumulated international loans.
As a result, we have the highest tax burden since the Second World War – and back in 1945, unlike today, we at least still had proper Armed Forces, even after six years on the battlefield.
‘Our’ NHS, which became a virtual ‘Covid-only’ service during the pandemic, was overwhelmed, according to inquiry findings published last week. It still hasn’t recovered. GP surgeries closed for months and even now patients are having to wait weeks for routine appointments.
Schools were closed entirely unnecessarily, with the full support of the militant teachers’ unions, depriving a generation of children a decent education. Absenteeism is still running at record levels as parents got out of the habit of taking their kids to school.
And despite the temporary Money For Nothing And Your Chips For Free scheme, the hospitality industry was crippled permanently. Labour is delivering the coup de grâce through cruel tax increases, a hike in the minimum wage and sky-high business rates. I read a figure at the weekend which claimed seven pubs a week are closing for every vape shop which opens.
Sounds about right. The expansion of online shopping during Covid has turned our traditional high streets into ghost towns. Extortionate parking charges and anti-car measures brought in during Covid, along with National Insurance rises and Labour’s money-grubbing taxes on small businesses, have done the rest. Vape shops and fake, money-laundering ‘Turkish’ barbers are about all there is left.
It’s also worth remembering that while the Tories were ultimately punished – partly but far from exclusively – for the fall-out from Covid, the Labour Party wanted to lock down even longer and harder.
Looking back, those of us who cast doubt on the wisdom of blanket lockdowns and outrageous curbs of our liberty were in a tiny minority. More than nine out of ten people were all in favour.
It seems vast numbers of our fellow citizens rather enjoy living under heavy manners, as they say in Jamaica.
Until Donald Trump ‘paused’ the bombing of Iran, following fears of a global energy crisis, I got the impression that plenty of folk were salivating at the prospect of the return of Covid-style restrictions and rationing.
Just as many survivors of the Second World War later expressed the opinion that those were the best years of their lives, millions today seem to have relished the privations of the pandemic and appear to be only too happy to relive it.
Prior to the current ‘pause’, the Government had been dusting off plans from the International Energy Agency, which include petrol rationing, a ban on gas cookers and the introduction of widespread WFH – though half the country has already beaten them to it.
Over the past week or so, I’ve heard tales of people stocking up with jerry cans of unleaded in anticipation of the pumps drying up. Drive past any Costco and the queues are 15-deep.
If the prospect of Iranian ballistic missiles dropping on Britain, doodlebug-style, ever became a reality, there would once again be Covid-era punch-ups in the aisles over dried pasta and tins of baked beans. Pretty soon the Bog Roll Bandits would be back in business.
Six years on it looks as though, if the Iran ‘pause’ doesn’t bring peace, we could be staring down the barrel of another Covid-style lockdown. And, far from being terrified, there would be no shortage of people prepared to hunker down singing Happy Days Are Here Again.
Makes you proud to be British.
