by Ross Clark at The Telegraph
A year ago we had no idea that a disease imported from China would prove to be so virulent. It is called authoritarianism, and it has ravaged the Government, Parliament and public agencies, leaving its victims unable to think beyond what to ban next, what to close down, what to cancel. The seven day average of Covid deaths has fallen another 40 per cent in the past week, and overall deaths now lie below the five-year average. More than half the UK adult population – the most vulnerable half – has been inoculated, many with a vaccine that, according to the results of US trials announce yesterday, reduces the risk of serious illness by 100 per cent.
And yet Covid rules are just about to get even nastier. Draft laws published today and to be voted on this Thursday not only extend emergency Covid legislation for another six months (three months beyond the end of the Prime Minister’s roadmap for ending restrictions), they introduce a new offence of travelling to a port or airport with the intention of leaving the country without reasonable excuse, punishable by a £5,000 fine.
In January, vaccinations minister Nadhim Zahawi appeared to rule out compulsory vaccination, saying it is not the way we do things in Britain. Now, the Prime Minister and Health Secretary have proposed to make it a legal requirement for care workers to be vaccinated. It is reasonable enough for employers to demand that staff are vaccinated as a condition of employment, where it is justified, but a blanket national regulation looks very much like the foundation for a law demanding that everyone submits to the needle.
Why? Over 90 per cent of target groups so far have taken up the vaccine without any degree of compulsion – more than enough to reach herd immunity level if repeated throughout the age groups. We have faithfully trooped to the vaccination clinics, we have mostly done as we were told and stayed at moment for months on end; just what more do we need to do to win back our freedom?
Once, the Government justified its draconian restrictions on freedom by pointing at rising infection rates and the potential for overflowing hospitals. Now, it does so by speculating about the possibility of a third wave spreading across the Channel (when the wave created by the Kent variant has surely travelled in the opposite direction) and speaking of the potential for grim new mutant forms of the virus beyond those which currently exist.
The Prime Minister once said that his hero was the mayor in Jaws because he kept the beaches open. No longer. If this Government faced a shark attack it would not only close the beaches for good, but also the promenade and, indeed, the entire seaside resort just in case a new variant of shark evolved capable of waddling out of the water and gobbling people up some distance inland.
Once infected with the urge to stop people doing things, there is no stopping our leaders. You can see it in proposed new laws against protest, traffic restrictions with ever-more eyewatering fines, a ban on foie gras, a law making a criminal offence of trespass. The legacy of Covid, unfortunately, looks like being a permanent change in the relationship between state and citizen, with the former feeling much more confident in its exercise of power over the latter.
Worst of all is the way that the ever-more draconian Covid laws seem to excuse a wealthy elite. The new law banning international travel would provide an exemption for people travelling abroad to prepare a second home for sale or rent – in other words, the wealthy will be allowed a loophole to go to their villas while the rest of us are forced to stay at home under pain of huge fines.
Societies rarely lose their freedoms in one go. A more common route to authoritarianism is through stealthy erosion of freedoms, each step seemingly justified by some external threat. That is the process we have been going through for the past 12 months. But like the proverbial frogs who sit still in a pot and get boiled alive of the temperature is increased gradually, we seem unaware of what is happening…
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