We need fresh ideas ... before it’s too late

THE best way for politicians not to lose the trust, confidence and support of the British public over their undistinguished handling of the coronavirus crisis is to be candid.

They ought to explain and contextualise the precise risk the disease poses, which to the overwhelming majority is microscopic.

Yet instead of treating voters like grownups, they appear to be trying to terrify us into meekly swallowing another layer of draconian controls on our personal liberty.

How else can one explain yesterday’s grim choreography?

Aides briefed that Boris Johnson would today chair the first meeting of the Government’s emergency committee Cobra for months, while consulting Nicola Sturgeon and the leaders of Wales and Northern Ireland.

That sought to send out a powerful signal that we are teetering on the brink of a new Covid meltdown.

The intention to scare was reinforced as the Government’s two chief scientists were wheeled onto our TV screens, armed with folders of statistics which, at first glance, sent a shiver down the spine.

Their bar charts suggested that 50,000 new cases and 200 deaths a day loom ominously on the horizon.

Yet under the hot glare of scrutiny, these figures appear at best highly contentious, and at worst wilfully misleading. There is a word for that: Scaremongering. Indeed, even if such pessimistic assumptions on daily Covid fatalities came true, it is a significantly smaller tally than those who die every 24 hours of flu and pneumonia during the winter.

No one seeks in the slightest to diminish what are individual tragedies.

Yet neither does anyone clamour to bring the country to a grinding halt for those seasonal outbreaks.

There is no tumult for everyone to be locked up at home.

And anyone suggesting the ‘off’ switch be flicked on the economy would be gently asked if they’d been drinking.

Of course for some, the virus can be very nasty. That’s indisputable. None of us can afford to be complacent.

For the overwhelming majority of people however, the risks of becoming seriously ill, let alone dying, are vanishingly minute.

Yet spooked by his own brush with Covid, and seemingly captured by his scientific advisors, Mr Johnson will still impose tougher restrictions. The First Minister is sure to follow suit.

Without giving the ludicrous ‘rule of six’ time to work, it appears they will order a 10pm curfew on pubs and restaurants, and curbs on socialising.

Mercifully, schools, shops and workplaces look set to remain open.

With a peg on our nose, the Mail reluctantly accepts these constraints. But we implore: No further!

A second punishing lockdown would turn Britain into an economic wasteland for a generation.

Already the vibrant hospitality industry is reeling. Consumer confidence is brittle. Closing down the entire economy would kill off the embryonic recovery, just as Britain buckles under £2trillion of debt.

Already cancer sufferers struggle to get life-saving treatment, mental health problems are spiralling and a pandemic of deprivation – itself a killer – is emerging. Who speaks for these forgotten victims?

For our leaders, this is a pivotal moment. This is not a zero-sum game of health versus wealth. The two go hand-in-hand.

Do they need to listen to a wider spectrum of experts? Dissenting voices to the Covid orthodoxy? Undoubtedly.

The input from hidebound Government scientists, whose only consideration is health, is too one-sided.

To serve the whole country best, they must take the widest possible range of views. That would achieve the greatest success and avoid the greatest damage.