Democracy and the enforcement of rules

REGARDING a letter which drew a veiled comparison between the enforcement of the Covid lockdown, by the UK police, and the initial treatment of the Jewish community by the Nazis. The writer ended by asking whether we had learned nothing (“Have we learned nothing from past?”, January 12).

The Nazis targeted Jews, other ethnic minorities and all those with mental health problems or severe physical disability. None had done anything that any reasonable person would call “wrong”. They had no choice about their ancestry or mental/physical condition. Worse still, there was no form of democracy to defend them.

Do the breakers of the Covid lockdown have a choice? These people make a conscious decision to drive from Peterborough to the Peak District, to exercise, or to Foremark Reservoir. Do the police tackle them simply because they are members of “an inferior racial type”? Do officers warn them, sometimes repeatedly, because they are mentally ill? Do they fine them because they are physically infirm? Does our dictatorial Government suppress their complaints?

Soon, the NHS might no longer be able to function. Aside from Covid, hospitals would be unable to treat casualties of road accidents, industrial incidents or domestic mishaps. Every intensive care bed would be occupied. All hospital staff would be physically and mentally exhausted (or Covidinfected themselves). Key consumables, such as oxygen, would be hard to obtain. Routine treatments would cease. There is no “good”’ outcome for the pandemic. Only the “least bad” one.

That is what the Government, elected by us, is trying to achieve.

Democracy gives us several key rights. It also imposes on us some important requirements and restrictions. In particular, we are expected to behave in a reasonable manner and to obey the law.

Democracy is not a regime in which we may make any choice that we like and behave just as we please. That state of affairs is called anarchy. Churchill was absolutely right. Democracy is the worst form of government……..apart from all the others.

If you don’t like the way in which Boris is directing the police in this crisis, remove him at the next election. Sadly, there was no such redress in Nazi Germany.

Police forces across the UK are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. Turn a blind eye and they are being ineffective. Adopt a tough approach and people bleat about loss of choice and the birth of a police state. In fact, the simple answer came during a recent episode of Hancock’s Half Hour. Behave as though you have the virus. Independent of the arbitrariness and perceived unfairness of the regulations, if your trip is not absolutely necessary, stay at home. Do this and the police won’t need to do anything at all.

So then, have we truly learned nothing? How about the difference between democracy and anarchy? Perhaps, that it is all too easy to make the police force the whipping boy? What of the difference between what we can justify to ourselves and what we can justify to an intensive care nurse or someone recently bereaved by Covid? Have we learned not to underestimate the number of selfish, stupid people and the damage that they can cause?

The law is, indeed, an ass. However, after writing a letter like that, don’t even think about calling our high-handed police if a criminal offence is committed against you. Write a letter to your democratically elected MP, instead.

Bob Berrisford, Mayfield