Lockdown: Britain does what it’s told
We’re almost four weeks into the lockdown, said The Economist, and the public is still sticking with it. Indeed, polls suggest that people have become increasingly compliant as time has gone on. Rather than resorting to force, ministers have been able to keep the country “under voluntary house arrest” mostly by appealing to people’s better nature and to their desire to be seen doing the right thing. This is a more effective strategy than the tabloid shaming of “covidiots” sunbathing in parks, which psychologists believe only encourages others to emulate such behaviour. The “veneration” of our health service has also helped, making people receptive to appeals to stay home to “protect the NHS”. But whatever explains the cooperation, it’s pretty remarkable given the sunny weather. As Gus O’Donnell, the former head of the civil service, put it: “Who would have thought that in a liberal democracy so many people would do what they are told?”
The vast majority of police are doing a fine job of gently encouraging compliance, said Stephen Daisley in The Spectator. But the antics of a few have risked rekindling “that lost British impulse of bloody-mindedness in the face of pompous, hectoring authority”. South Yorkshire Police, for example, had to apologise after an officer wrongly scolded a family for being in their own front garden. Cambridgeshire
Constabulary likewise had to have a word with what they described as an “over-exuberant officer” who tweeted that the force was monitoring the “non-essential aisles” in Tesco. These few officious officers are not the only ones “enjoying the opportunity to boss around otherwise law-abiding people rather too much”, said Tom Welsh in The Daily Telegraph. There has been an “epidemic of snitching” since hotlines were set up to allow members of the public to shop people for flouting distancing guidelines.
Don’t worry, the police are not about to start inspecting our grocery bags, said Kenan Malik in The Observer. But the recent use of more intrusive policing techniques – from asking motorists to justify their movements to using drones to shame walkers – does raise questions about how we might expect to be policed when things return to “normal”. Not so long ago, the West was horrified by China’s mass surveillance systems. But now the European Commission is asking telecom firms to hand over data to track population movements, and the NHS is developing an app that traces people’s contacts and advises those at risk to self-isolate. Such measures could be useful in the current crisis. “But temporary responses to specific emergencies have a habit of becoming permanent.”