Written by Mike Newland
The more critical and radical among us like Peter Hitchens and Brendan O’Neill are alarmed at the passivity with which the population has responded to Britain’s new police state. Well if you can’t wander the Queen’s Highway as and when you wish without being subject to the police fining you or forcibly ordering you to go home what is that but a police state?
Let us leave aside whether a police state is a necessary thing in our circumstances for health reasons and focus on the lack of concern about the other side of it – a loss of freedoms far greater than during WWII or ever unless you go back to medieval times. Barely a mouse stirred when this began. Hitchens described it as ‘throwing yourself into the arms of Big Brother’.
The question that is being asked is whether people have lost their appetite for freedom. That would be odd at a time when there is decreasing confidence in the political system and especially when it’s a Tory government which is the propellant. The supposed proponents of individual freedom at least as far as all too many who still at least partly believe it.
I think all can be explained by the exceptional circumstances. The passive acceptance of government actions which would have been seen as unthinkable several months ago does not mean that an aspiration for freedom is dead.
What is happening is a temporary retreat into infantilism in the face of mass panic. A return to childhood where authority figures if obeyed in emergency have those infallible powers we expect our parents to possess. It’s interesting that a lot of people who are ferociously opposed to the Tories and hold right-thinking metro liberal views are so keen on controls introduced by Boris Johnson.
The panicked look unconsciously to a father figure to protect them and he has appeared in the unlikely persona of Al Johnson upon whom the desired abilities are projected. A nursery world of happy clapping – we’ve not had the candles and teddies yet but give it opportunity – which will help to add to the mysterious protections offered by quasi parental figures.
In nurseryland there is little of adult consideration about the effects on the future of what we enjoy now. The economy? That’s for the wealthy to worry about and we have the pocket money for today’s ice cream van visit.
Like world-end cults who stick to their beliefs when the date comes and goes, one suspects that, even if persuaded that the imprisonment and lockdown did not make much difference to the virus, the panicked would still agree to continue with it all.
There is no great blame here. As General Patten I think said, ‘No man is an atheist in a foxhole’ and the prospect of Professor Ferguson’s half a million dead still being proffered by the Prime Minister is psychologically a foxhole situation. Ferguson resigned after seeming to deny the validity of his own alarmism but he’ll be back. He’s obviously useful to government.
What creates a panic is mostly not events but the perception of them generated by whoever has the public ear. There was no panic during The Blitz or the Cuban Missile Crisis but neither of the then governments or media set out to create one. The opposite is true this time.
Our father Johnson appears to admire Churchill. Would he have behaved like the current government in this situation?
Is the infantilism now entrenched? When the panic dies down, which it will regardless of second waves and so on since people will eventually just want to get on with their lives, then the infantilised will move on to adolescent revolt and questioning. Rejection of parental authority is common while still demanding drawing rights from ‘The Bank of Dad’. Current cashier Rishi Sunak.
It will be politically fascinating to see how things then play out for the Tories. One suspects that plans have already been made to find ways of gaining political advantage from economic collapse. Dump the current big movers as tainted and say there are now new men in charge offering a bright future? The Tory party is expert at survival.
It is a crisis of masculinity. Masculinity is a state of mind prepared to defend patriarchal moral values and there appears to be no man in the West prepared to defend any principle now or is even prepared to engage with any of the issues I wish to raise. Generally speaking, men hate lockdown while women love it. Women get their way because all political parties pander to the female voter.
HAVE YOU EVER LISTENED TO THE MONOLOG OF ”THE LION AND ALBERT” ? ….. This kid poked his stick in the lion’s ear, so the lion ate the kid ! – ”No, no” said the Mother, – ”Someone has to be summonsed”, so that was decided upon !
Some Chinese berk let lose a virus onto a travelling public, and the virus went worldwide ! – Different Nations took similar, but different actions to it, and some Nations were caught without any plans to deal with it, due to the costs involved in dealing with something that had not happened yet !
In the UKofGB, we are hearing ”No, no; someone has to be summonsed” – (Government, and why not ?) ! ….. Now I am hearing the otherwise docile public saying,- ”so that was decided upon” ! ….. MSM please take note, you twits !
I did enjoy your article and will have to read again to fully absorb the meanings. It is good to question behaviour. The public’s behaviour does not bear close inspection. On the surface there seems to be sense, but scratch the surface and it is not. To infantilism I would add shallowness, sorry to be cutting. Besides there is so much information now to shine a light on bad decisions. During the void of the unknown there was some excuse now there isn’t.
Another great line, “What creates a panic is mostly not events but the perception of them generated by whoever has the public ear”. For me, this comes back to freedom of speech and corruption in the media. What media?
The mainstream media are driven by three things. One is money. The industry has near collapsed. Most people don’t buy papers and running a newspaper is almost a hobby for rich men now. It needs a flow of shock stories to keep up interest since there is little substance. Secondly maintaining credibility with a public mostly needing to ‘believe in the system’. That means avoiding being too critical of it. The third is the need to keep in with power. Businesses don’t want a war with government.
I was only just more than an infant when Mother decided I could argue the hind legs off a donkey. So I don’t agree with the idea we are ALL accepting the police state because we have been panicked into childlike obedience.
I continued to walk my dog on the grass TWICE a day, from the start. Not once have I been stopped or challenged by anyone though police vehicles do pass here at least once a day.
I don’t support Mike Newland’s anti Tory comments (last 2 paras) but nor am I a lifelong blind supporter of that party. He does not suggest any alternative political party at present in existence that would not have responded to the pandemic in this way.
Even if the lockdown WAS an unnecessary imposition of a Police State, suppose the Government had done nothing – reacted in a good old fashioned Tory laissez faire manner – let’s face it – the shock horror, blame the Tories would have been much greater. Sometimes surely, there are situations where ‘you just can’t win’.
Did the Tories say temporary measure? They tried to introduce their scheme for two years. Yes something had to be done. How about distancing and focus on isolating the vulnerable instead of committing economic suicide? Starkey has a new very good interview up on Youtube. And they introduced the lockdown sneakily so it did not receive the examination it should have done..
It’s quite simple.
People can see the sense of lockdown/isolation. That’s why they accept it.
It hardly affects me at all but I live in a rural area with a large garden.
I agree Harry Again. We accept it as far as we see the sense. I’ve not long had a back door into my back garden and it is not very large but otherwise I’m like you.
I feel sorry for those living in cities and/or high rise flats etc. Perhaps the pavements are too narrow/crowded to walk about. Seems idiotic if parks really were locked. There again probably there are keep off the grass signs all over.
Perhaps in places it really is almost as bad as the Chinese Police State.
However, I have enough faith still in our British Constitution and way of life to believe that we will not be permanently in a Police State.
Has Pauline not noticed how freedom of speech is under massive and continued attack. People walk on eggshells. Just to pick one example the creation of a ‘police record’ for people guilty of non-crime events. Currently litigated against by an ex-policeman who was told they were ‘checking his thinking’. Which party will oppose any of this??
That is back to the Cressida Dick ‘thing’ isn’t it? Not the fault of THIS government. I’ve already said shame she can’t be sacked – bloomin’ Lib Dem influence that was.
And your previous comment is also missing points I have raised. THIS vulnerable person had long isolated herself from unnecessary interference in her life SIMPLY BECAUSE I WANTED TOO. I carried on as before and ‘the police state’ have NOT pounced on me.
All right Mike. I understand you are very worried about – for instance – freedom of speech and the temporary nature of lock down. Well, surely this site is an example of freedom of speech and the temporary nature of lockdown was insisted on by parliament wasn’t it?
Yes the whole structure of our democracy has wobbled badly but THANK GOODNESS it is a long way from the Chinese police state, and also from Orwell’s vision in 1984.