As France and Germany impose tough measures and infections continue to rise, the UK appears gripped by paralysis
The decision not to implement a two- or three-week “circuit breaker” lockdown in October, using the school half-term to minimise the inevitable disruption, can now be added to a list of paths not taken by the UK government in its coronavirus response. As the French and German leaders have gone before their people in recent days to explain new measures to try to inhibit a rising second wave of infections, the British public have instead been subjected to a barrage of conflicting opinion and interpretation from national and local politicians, scientists, business leaders and the former supreme court justice Jonathan Sumption, who is among supporters of a new campaign set up to oppose what it describes as curbs on “essential freedoms”.
With Wales and Northern Ireland (as well as the Irish Republic) already under stricter regimes than England, and a system of five tiers operating in Scotland in contrast with England’s three, the UK seems headed in the opposite direction to our European neighbours. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, used a televised address on Wednesday to summon a “collective effort” to apply a brake to the disease’s spread during a four-week period of tough restrictions. After a video conference with Germany’s 16 state leaders, Angela Merkel announced similar measures. Challenged by rightwing critics in parliament, her apt retort was that “freedom is not every man for himself, it is responsibility – for oneself, one’s family, the workplace. It shows us we are part of a whole.”
