A former Supreme Court justice has warned that the public are displaying “collective hysteria” over coronavirus.
Lord Sumption told Radio 4’s The World At One:
The pressure on politicians has come from the public, they want action. They don’t pause to ask whether the action will work, they don’t ask themselves whether the cost will be worth paying – they want action anyway.
Anyone who has studied history will recognise here the classic symptoms of collective hysteria.
Hysteria is infectious. We are working ourselves up into a lather in which we exaggerate the threat and stop asking ourselves whether the cure may be worse than the disease.”
Yes, this is serious, and, yes, it’s understandable that people cry out to the Government, but the real question is, is this serious enough to warrant putting most of our population into house imprisonment, wrecking our economy for an indefinite period, destroying businesses that honest and hard-working people have taken years to build up, saddling future generations with debt?
Depressions, stress, heart attacks, suicides and unbelievable stress inflicted on millions of people who are not especially vulnerable and will suffer only mild symptoms or none at all like the Health Secretary and the Prime Minister.
Lord Sumption also criticised Derbyshire Police for having “shamed our policing traditions” for showing footage shaming people walking dogs in the Peak District.
Officers also dyed Buxton’s blue lagoon black to discourage people from visiting the beauty spot.
The tradition of policing in this country is that policemen are citizens in uniform, they are not members of a disciplined hierarchy operating just at the Government’s command.
Yet in some parts of the country the police have been trying to stop people from doing things like travelling to take exercise in the open country which are not contrary to the regulations simply because ministers have said that they would prefer us not to.
The police have no power to enforce ministers’ preferences but only legal regulations which don’t go anything like as far as the Government’s guidance.
Lord Sumption previously attacked Gina Miller and John Major for taking cases to court against the Government. He joins a growing list of dissenters who argue that the panic caused around this is not in keeping with the reality of the situation as well as questioning the modelling of predictions resulting in a near total lockdown for the UK.
Lead Correspondent | David Clews is the Lead Correspondent for UNN, with over 20 years of political/campaigning experience and a wealth of social media and communication skills David gets to the heart of what is really important to the real people of the UK.
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