When is A Lockdown Not A Lockdown?

 

Next week England comes out of its second lockdown of the year, well sort of, since most of the country, some 55million people, will instantly go into the highest two tiers of a new set of regional restrictions, only Cornwall, the Isle of Wight and the Isles of Scilly will go into  Tier One, which represents something almost like normality.

 

My hometown of Stoke-on-Trent will be joining most of the North and the Midlands in Tier Three. Since there isn't much else to do all 23million of us will have plenty of time to consider how our situation resembles that of the physicist's cat. We will be both in lockdown and not in lockdown at one and the same time; enjoy.

 

In a statement to the House of Commons when the new tiers were unveiled on Thursday Health Secretary Matt Hancock said that ' thanks to the shared sacrifice of everyone in recent weeks'  we have been ' able to bring the virus back under control'.

 

He added that hope, in the shape of a vaccine, 'is on the horizon but we still have further to go' and 'must all dig deep'.

 

That Stoke-on-Trent has ended up in the highest tier is no surprise, despite falling consistently over the past week the infection rate is still high at 419.3 per 100,000, putting us in seventh place in the league table of virus hotspots.

 

Council leader Abi Brown wrote to Matt Hancock asking for the city to be placed in Tier Two on the strength of our having brought the number of infections down twice before. The answer, unsurprisingly, was no dice, having got their fingers burnt in their tussles with Andy Burnham last month national government isn't much minded to listen to the case made by uppity local leaders.

 

This, as NHS health chief for the city Dr Paul Edmondson Jones told the Sentinel left the city with little else to do other than 'pick ourselves up and sort things out'.

 

Anyway, the government are going to be more than a little distracted by fighting a pitched battle with their own back benchers, many of whom are up in arms at their constituencies being put in the top two tiers.

 

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has hardly poured oil on troubled waters by blandly asserting that 'every area has the means of escape ' from the highest tiers. Not least since the criteria for getting out are far from clear.

 

You don't need to be a salty seadog to smell a storm brewing that is most likely to blow up into a hurricane. Within minutes of the announcement Graham Brady, a leading light in the Covid Recovery Group, aka the awkward squad, was telling the BBC thought the policies adopted by the government since the pandemic began 'have been too authoritarian '.

 

Former Brexit minister Steve Baker, also speaking to the BBC called on the government to  publish details of the likely impact of the new restrictions on ' society, people's livelihoods and businesses ' before MPs vote  on the issue next week.

 

The government are expected to win the vote, which takes place on Tuesday, but may need the support of the opposition to do so. Labour are likely to oblige, but at an as yet undisclosed price.

 

What we have seen unfold over the past week is a rehash of the cocktail of muddle and miscommunication that has been the signature of the Johnson government since the start of the pandemic in March.

 

If the current restrictions had been implemented earlier, we might be in a better position now. We could be in a worse one yet if the planned relaxation over Christmas goes as badly as everyone apart from Boris Johnson thinks it will.

 

Add to this the fact that the Tory back benches are filled with MPs, many from seats in the North that belonged to Labour until December last year and there is the Making a of a pretty mess brewing. One that could make the upheavals over Brexit look like a vicarage tea party.

 

It is right that when the executive interferes so drastically in people's lives as it has over the past year that parliament should defend the liberties on which our democracy is founded. Unfortunately, the government is not minded to pay attention, citing instead the demands of safety as an excuse for their actions.

 

Matters aren't helped by the absence of an effective opposition, for all his obvious intellect Labour leader Keir Starmer presents a dry and lawyerly figure. What little fire here is in his belly seems to be reserved for the endless purge of anyone suspected of supporting his predecessor.

 

Without a credible figure to lead it or an argument as to what we should be doing differently that holds water opposition to the current restrictions sounds like little more than sour grapes and self-interest. An increasingly frustrated public is left stranded on the side-lines of their own lives wondering what, if anything, will be left of their hopes and businesses.

 

The promise, such as it is, is that we just have to get through the winter and thanks to the vaccines set to come on stream things will start to get better. As Mr Johnson put it, they may not be on the horizon yet, but the cavalry is on its way.

 

Writing this article in a city where pretty much everything is closed and may stay that way until Spring it is hard to hear their hoof beats over the din of politicians squabbling.