So it is okay to arrest someone who is doing no harm to anyone. That this is massive overreach should be obvious to anyone with a functioning brain and the understanding that the state should not be policing our every move. Yet people seem to think this is okay. Or do they?
I’ve had some feline issues of late. One with dental problems (££££££) and another with a sniffle and a third that is off colour. It looks like dental again, but I won’t know until tomorrow. Anyway, this is largely besides the point. On my multiple drives to the veterinary surgery this past week, traffic was lighter than normal, but not hugely.
Talking to others, they have made similar observations – there’s plenty of people going to work and that this lock-down supposedly as strict as the one we endured last spring, is nothing of the sort. Businesses that are supposedly not essential are continuing to trade.
Not that I am complaining as, like Peter Hitchens, I am opposed to the lock-down in its entirety. But the thought comes to mind – is this how it will end? Will this overreach become so extensive that people simply stop complying? After all, we have been under effective house arrest for nearly a year now so eventually something will give.
Sure there are the lock-down acolytes who post immature diatribes on social media in an attempt to justify their totalitarian tendencies, but in the real world things are quietly going back to normal as people simply stop complying.
Dunno. I do hope so, though. If the country as a whole simply ceases to obey, then the government’s position becomes untenable and enforcement eventually becomes impossible. So while we are seeing people like this woman being arrested – and I would expect reasonable people to be horrified – eventually, there will be so many like her, the police will have to go back to dealing with real crimes.
One can hope…
At some point the police and the Home Office will realise that there are 140,000 police officers and millions of angry British citizens, these are not good odds and are odds that I would not like to bet any money on and realise that although some can be bullied into compliance, a growing number will not. Like you I hope that we will collectively say ‘bollocks’ to it all and go back to our lives and stop listening to failed politicians and failed academics pushing the same failed lockdown policies, which if they were to have had any validity at all, should have been considered, along with a temporary border closure, as soon as the Wu Flue appeared in China.
Because of issues such as my own experience with the Khan and Dick’s ‘thought police’ and the ongoing scandal of Islamic Rape Gangs that is going virtually untackled, I have a very low opinion of the police anyway but I recognise that a police force is a necessary thing in a complex modern society. If we are to have a police force then it must be honest, proportional and enforce the law equitably, something we are not seeing at present. I suspect that when all this is over the various police forces are going to find that the public will have to a large extent disengaged from them, will not assist them when asked and will hold them in contempt. This could have been avoided had they not treated the British people like scum throughout all this disgraceful covid episode and the respect that the majority once had for them will disappear and it will be a respect that either will not come back or will take decades to recover.
I totally agree. Lockdowns cannot work and we should all say enough is enough. This is now a police state and very nasty it is too.
Don’t think we’re quite a police state yet, but it’s not looking good is it. I have no experience of one though family members did.
Hyperbole weakens the case a little I think.
The police are advertising for new recruits on the telly box at the moment. Presumably they have existing officers either resigning in disgust or dying of shame.
or they need more because to be a police state you need police.
Back in March I thought: give it two weeks and people will have had enough, the government will be happy to call it off before being ignored gets too embarrassing; nice if they were to apologise for overreacting but if they want to claim credit for ‘saving the NHS’ let’em, we don’t have to believe it. By summer it looked as if at long last people had emerged from behind to sofa into the sunlight. Wrong again! So now, what do I know? Some are getting a bit angrier, some seem to be giving in.
In the UK, the use of handcuffs is considered assault without a valid reason for their use, i.e. the person is violent or a flight risk. Even if the arrest is valid, the filth involved can still be charged with assault if the use of handcuffs was not justified. It is difficult to see that their use was justified in this instance, so charges of assault should be laid.
I note that with regards to the arrest in Dorset of the lady on the park bench, that the police are trying to worm their way out of the opprobrium that has been directed their way by claiming that they were ‘set up’ by anti lockdown protestors. The BBC of course is reporting Dorset police’s ‘beliefs’ as if they were solid and unassailable fact. I have little inclination to believe either the police or the BBC on this matter in fact what I will say about is this ‘sniff, sniff. Do you smell bullshit.
The police behaves just like usual: go for the low hanging fruits. It’s so easy to fine someone with those draconian laws, usually people who won’t give them no real trouble and who are solvent. I have helped them solve crimes but I would not piss on one if he was on fire.
It’s ‘the unique way they’re funded’, clearly!
Expect to see more episodes in the future where an officer is getting a battering while trying to arrest some oik, and nobody helps, just stand around filming or walk away.
Then cue the head of police farce in the area on TV scratching his head going “Why did nobody help?” with some pearl clutching from the luvvies.
“On my multiple drives to the veterinary surgery this past week, traffic was lighter than normal, but not hugely.”
Traffic yesterday was noticably much, much quieter than a normal Sunday. So much so I arrived 10 mins early and had to sit in the car park to wait for Lidl to open.
I’ve noticed more people not wearing masks in stores – not lots but more. Lots of people walking and sitting along the seafront drinking coffee / tea, over the weekend, again, very few masks.
Sadly, some of my friends (in their 50’s and 60’s so should know better) still believe everything they are told by the media. One of them has always been a bit of an eco fanatic and a very vocal critic of big business and big pharma (GM in particular). He can’t wait to get his DNA genetically modified with the vaccine……..
Just look at the front page of the metro today
The worst is yet to come…
I agree. On top of that it looks as if the Govt will now remove our right to express our views at the ballot box with stories going around that the Govt will ‘postpone’ the local and regional elections.
Yes, I’ve heard that. They already did it with the London mayoral elections.
This is American but worth a read:
https://www.aier.org/article/pandemic-response-is-our-vietnam/
Agreed, Phil. Thanks for that link.
“…the police will have to go back to dealing with real crimes…”
Then they’d have to go back some 40+ years.