Have five weeks of mad panic actually done us any good?

IFIND it incredible that it is now five weeks since I wrote here: ‘We have gone quite mad. I know that many people are thinking this, but dare not say so. I will be accused of all kinds of terrible things for taking this view – but that is another aspect of how crazy things are.’

I said we had got our policy on Covid-19 out of proportion.

I said the worst effect of the Government’s behaviour was to savage the economy by scaring people away from normal activities.

It was only a week later I realised that there was also a grave threat to personal liberty, and raised that alarm too.

I recall these words because you will all by now have noticed they stand up well to the test of time.

The report from the Office for Budget Responsibility has made clear that the damage done by crashing the economy is deep and dangerous. It may last for many years. And much of it was avoidable.

Some police officers have also acted with shocking arrogance, and appeared to enjoy it. The harm done by this behaviour may never be repaired.

I suspect that many of you know this in detail.

The pain is spreading fast in the form of strangled business, often small enterprises built on brave risk-taking and mortgaged homes. Many are now sinking into bankruptcy – not because they failed, but because the Government’s policy killed them.

Then there are the vanishing jobs, the wage cuts which many are already experiencing, and which more face with every day that this shutdown continues.

It really is time that the Cabinet took responsibility for at least limiting this damage. I for one will not jeer at them for doing so. When you make a mistake, as we all do, the test is what you do to put it right.

I was accused when I warned of this of not caring about deaths from Covid-19.

This was false. In fact it poisoned the wells of debate.

I have never doubted the good intentions of those who supported the Government’s policy, I just thought they were mistaken and counter-productive.

I pointed out that we also needed to care about the deaths which experts, such as Germany’s Professor Sucharit Bhakdi, repeatedly warned would come from closing down both social life and economic activity for any length of time. It was not life versus money. It was life versus life.

My warnings would have been fainter (though not wrong) if the Government’s policy had been successful. But has it been? I would say not so far.

Yes, the virus has killed a significant number of people, but the expected mass onslaught of deaths has not arrived. The NHS has a huge number of empty beds for the time of year. The mortality figures show a confused picture, not least because it is not clear how the authorities decide who is and who is not recorded as a Covid-19 death.

The unprecedented, sweeping decision to put the healthy in quarantine has gravely affected society. But did it lead to a laxness on detailed policy decisions, on the provision of personal protection equipment to doctors and nurses, and on the care homes whose treatment looks to me like a major scandal?

The evidence from Stockholm,

THE dangerous, greedy campaign to legalise marijuana now has powerful allies on all sides of politics.

In my view, it has never been closer to success here, and the pressing need to raise new taxes may bring that day even closer.

Well, before they fall into this trap, MPs and Ministers should listen to Professor Sir Robin Murray, one of this country’s most distinguished psychiatrists who had until recently favoured limited legalisation.

But now that he has seen how this has actually worked out in North America, he has absolutely changed his mind. which has so far pursued a rational, proportionate, limited policy, still suggests that Sweden will emerge from this less damaged by far than we will. Calm, reasoned responses are almost always better than frantic, panicking ones. What we are doing isn’t working on any terms. It is time we tried something else.

Not only is he sure that the drug’s use is linked with mental illness, he now says: ‘I didn’t appreciate how big the cannabis industry was going to be.’

He compares Big Cannabis with the death-dealing Big Tobacco lobby which cynically used its wealth to defy health campaigners for many decades.

He now fears that this ultrarich pressure group will seduce our cash-strapped Government into giving way.

At any other time, Prof Murray’s intervention would have been big news. Don’t let it be forgotten.