Pages tagged "Lockdown"
The assaults on our basic freedoms have to stop. We didn’t take back control from Brussels to hand it over ministers who can arbitrarily dictate how we lead our lives
By Andrew Allison, Head of Campaigns
To a certain extent the Government has had no option but to make it up as it goes along. None of us have experience of a virus like Covid-19. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. But the Government’s latest assaults on our liberties and freedoms must be challenged.
We are no longer a Parliamentary Democracy. That stopped months ago. But we were told that it wouldn’t be for long. All we had to do was stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives. We did that in the tens of millions. Roads were deserted. All but essential shops were closed. Pubs, restaurants, cinemas, theatres, and bowling alleys were closed. We could only leave our homes to buy essential goods. We could exercise for an hour a day, but at least the weather was getting better, although for those of us with gardens, lockdown was far more tolerable than for those who live in blocks of flats.
Read morePut the Covid-19 statistics into context: it's time to get back to work and get the economy moving again
By Andrew Allison, Head of Campaigns
I am sure that you, like me, are not content with the new normal and want the old normal back. It is becoming increasingly obvious that Covid-19 has mutated and is not as deadly as it was at the beginning of the year. Here are the latest statistics published by the Government at 4.00 pm yesterday:
Read moreAn eight-point plan to get the country moving again
The following is a guest post by Tony Brown. Tony was a Political Advisor to the former Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy and its predecessor, Europe of Freedom and Democracy.
I have been a trenchant critic of Government about Covid in recent weeks, provoking a number of my friends to ask 'ok, what would you do?' This 8 point plan is my answer to that important, valid question:
1. Publicly sack discredited advisors who have exaggerated the threat and provided massively inaccurate forecasts of deaths and serious illness; for example, forecasters at Imperial College. Instead start listening only to those whose more optimistic forecasts are borne out by the data;
2. State unequivocally that it is deaths and serious illness which matter and not incidence when so many cases are asymptomatic and cause no problems to those catching Covid;
Interpreting lockdown law with discretion is best for both police and public
The following article by Andrew Allison, Head of Campaigns, was published on Brexit-Watch.org's website yesterday.
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I APPRECIATE that the Police have a difficult job to do. There are plenty of idiots out there who at normal times feel that the law doesn’t apply to them. They don’t change their behaviour just because we are in the grip of a pandemic. The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020, to give it its full title, is emergency legislation. The Police would have had very little input into the drafting of it, and have been left with the task of enforcing the new powers that they have been given. But although the vast majority of officers have policed using 'The 4 E's’: Engage, Explain, Encourage, Enforce, there have been some examples of the Police being over-zealous to say the least. |
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How did we get into this mess and how do we get out of it?
The following is a guest post by Tomaž Slivnik. He grew up in communist Yugoslavia. After his visits to the USA in the 1980s, his dream of living in the free world and working with computers came true when he got to study and complete his MA, MMath and PhD at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was a postdoc and an assistant professor and spent time at universities in the UK, USA, Australia & Singapore before becoming a technology entrepreneur and then an active angel investor. He is an investor in many technology startups and a member of the board of Cambridge Angels.
Quarantine. The idea that those with contagious diseases should be kept away from those who are healthy dates back at least to the Biblical book of Leviticus, written in the seventh century BC. During the bubonic plague outbreak of 1665-1666, the inhabitants of the village of Eyam, infected with the plague, quarantined themselves, in an act of self-sacrifice, in order to stop the spread of the plague to neighbouring towns and villages.
The UK lockdown is now doing more harm than good - it is time to end it
The following is a guest post by David Kurten, a Brexit Alliance London Assembly Member.
The coronavirus lockdown in the United Kingdom began at the end of the third week of March. This was after a series of U-turns by the government, which had previously adopted a light touch approach which it said was guided by science. In the first half of March, the government and their advisors announced that schools should stay open because there was very little chance of the virus being widely transmitted by children. London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan stated that there was no risk of catching the virus on a train or a bus. We were also told that gathering in large numbers outdoors would not spread the virus so the Cheltenham Festival could go ahead. Pubs, restaurants and cafes remained open.
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