Eight reasons why this second lockdown verges on the criminally insane

As the self-immolation of the United Kingdom continues, here's some reasons why a second lockdown makes no sense, and why this government is the worst of the worst of the worst. 

Joker Johnson

The new lockdown was imposed by a man who said in a televised address to the nation on 22 September: “If we were forced into a new national lockdown, that would threaten not just jobs and livelihoods but the loving human contact on which we all depend”, and just two weeks ago attacked lockdowns for the “psychological, the emotional damage” they inflict. He described them as the “nuclear option” in July, and last month slammed Keir Starmer for supporting them. Yet he goes and does it again. Can there be any clearer sign that we are led by a man with no principles, no wisdom and no coherence? (No wonder he wouldn't speak to Andrew Neil during the last election campaign.)

Rules and regulations

Over the last few months the government has brought in new rules at dizzying speed, on top of one another. No sooner do you get used to a ‘bubble’, there’s rule of six, then you’re in a tier, then you’re in full lockdown (and it’s different in each corner of the United Kingdom), or you might be asked to mask up in different places from different dates. Not only is this demoralising, but it demonstrates how our rulers are doing anything but ‘following the science’, it's just political theatre: there is simply never enough time given to assess whether these new rules are having any effect. They epitomise the panic and U-turns of the Johnson premiership.

International travel

Announce last week that there are now travel corridors with the likes of the Canary Islands. Which means people book holidays there. Then, a few days later, ban international travel. Brilliant! Well done, court jester of Downing Street, you've just made people's lives slightly worse by making them cancel their holidays and giving them just that bit more stress in their lives that are already awful because of all the terrible decisions you have made this year.

Hospitality

The poor pubs and restaurants. Many nearly close in the first lockdown, but then they reopen with all manner of anti-Covid measures in place - plastic shields, one-way systems, signing-in books, soon followed by table service and mandatory masking. It appears to work, because only around 3% of infections are traced back to hospitality. Their reward: get shut down again, maybe in some cases forever. So you might run a pub in Devon, where there are a tiny, tiny amount of cases, and have to shut your doors, waste your stock, dispirit your customers, because of this lame-brained, evil, sledgehammer policy.

Gyms and swimming pools

These are places where people go to get fit, where they can build up strength and immunity to disease, where they can becomes healthier, not less healthy. Swimming pools are tightly regimented nowadays, with booking and lane swimming mandatory - and you swim in bloody chlorine. Accordingly, data shows that less than 2% of infections are picked up at such places. Yet they are closed by this moronic, pathetic prime minister.

Masks

They worked then, didn’t they? We were told we had to don these in certain public places (three months after the end of the pandemic, bizarrely) and then a month or so later even in places like pubs and restaurants (unless we were sitting down!) but look what happened: ‘cases’ went up, hugely so. So will they now admit that masks do not stop the ingestion of virus pathogens? Of course they won’t! They’ll just double down again, and probably make them mandatory on the street. (Incidentally, this pattern has been replicated in every single country that has mandated masks - cases have risen.) For evidence that masks don’t work click here. 

Hospital capacity

So… you say in March you’re shutting the country to ensure the NHS isn’t overrun. March - eight months ago. So why the hell, in November, might it not be able to cope with patients given that you’ve had all this time to prepare it. Seven Nightingale hospitals were built and not used - one has even been torn down again, at huge cost. So how can it be a factor that the NHS ‘can’t cope’. Wouldn’t it have been rather less expensive to get more beds in than shut down most of the economy again? The short-sightedness beggars belief.

Forecasts

None of Sage’s forecasts have ever come true, yet they are never hauled up on this. Remember Ferguson’s initial forecast? Utter bunkum, out by a factor of ten. Or Witless and Unbalanced’s ‘graph of doom’ in September in which they said cases were doubling every seven days. Complete drivel. The truth is that for these people there is no risk to their career if they predict figures that are too high; they only risk their reputation if their figures are too low. So they always go high. (Sage also lies - on Saturday they said there were up to 74,000 new daily Covid cases back in mid-October - official data shows cases were less than a quarter of that level.)

I could go on. And I might add to this list - I could talk about cases and how they’re not all they seem, yet they drive government thinking (sometimes you don’t even need to be tested to get a positive test). Yet, incredibly, so many still have faith in this administration, one that has put its citizens through hell and shows no sign of stopping. And that’s why I called this blog Mad World (and also because the Tear for Fears song was written in the city where I live, Bath).