On 23rd March 2020, as part of a suite of restrictions aimed at tackling the novel coronavirus that had been unleashed from China, we entered three weeks of curve flattening, sombrero squashing and hysteria when the UK government in England announced our first ever economic and social lockdown. Lockdown was only one of several initiatives all of which have been damaging. But the cumulative effect of these measures has been dreadful with companies going to the wall, jobs being lost, lives being lost (as a result of the measures, not the virus), galloping inflation, and education being irreversibly disrupted for school and university students. Now the NHS—which we were purporting to save—is crippled with a predicted (and predictable) care backlog of millions of investigations and procedures.
It was not over in three weeks; it was not even over by Christmas…or the following Christmas but, faint hearts and health fascists permitting, it will be over this month. All restrictions are to be lifted a month earlier than planned. It seems incredible to reflect that had restrictions been sustained until 23 March this year that would have been exactly two years since they were first brought in. A whole two years after China’s great gift to the world reached these shores, people should be back at work, not wearing face masks, with no need to quarantine if they succumb to Covid.
But the damage has been done. Far from being united in a common battle against a virus, society has been divided. There was a clear division at the outset between those of us with spare rooms, spare computers and Wi-Fi and those, to the detriment of their health, who turned up daily with our fine wines and groceries. There has been an obvious, and at times vocal and aggressive, divide between those who wore face masks and those who refused; between the ‘vaxxers’ and the ‘anti-vaxxers’; and between those who have been largely ignoring the restrictions (many located at 10 Downing Street); and people who have, literally, not emerged from their house for the best part of two years.
However, we must not become distracted putting out these fires. These things will pass and—as predicted early in 2020 by fellow Unity News Network columnist and regular guest on Unity News Dr Niall McCrae—that when all this is over everyone will claim to have been a lockdown sceptic. Indeed, there is evidence that this is already happening with some grudging admissions that we were right to more gushing praise in the mainstream media. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer—having survived a recent assassination attempt—has been quite muted about lifting restrictions this month. Even he can sense the zeitgeist. The problem we must face is that our government in common with most governments across the world, has discovered just how easy it is to subjugate a population, remove our customary freedoms of speech, association and movement. Despite widespread protests and resistance which is growing and remarkably, now being reported by the mainstream media to some extent, we have no guarantee that by lying, exaggerating threat, arbitrary punishment and a large measure of coercion our government will not do this to us again.
That is the next battle, and it is why organs like Unity News Network and The Daily Sceptic, new foundations such as Free Societies and organisations such as the Free Speech Union and the Workers of England Union are vital and should be supported. We still have battles to fight such as the continued rollout of an unnecessary vaccine which is making people more susceptible to infection, the lingering presence of vaccine passports and the continuing threat of compulsory vaccines. The fat man may have spoken, but the fat lady has not yet sung.
Opinions from the Unity News Network (UNN) editorial team & various contributors. | UNN always clearly distinguishes between news and opinion pieces and as an open minded outlet we publish views from a variety of people and organisation that do not necessarily reflect the views of UNN or its writers. Articles published under UNN Opinions are always opinion pieces and if published on behalf of a contributor will contain that authors name at the start of the piece.
