Social distancing needs to be reasonable, says ANN WIDDECOMBE
SO, BORIS, where is your land of liberty now? Where is proportionality and reason?
Coronavirus: Social distancing could last 'six months’ says expert
It would be very helpful and calming if you would kindly remind the nation and the growing army of petty bureaucrats what this lockdown is all about: preventing people from getting too close to each other. Providing that is achieved, the rest is immaterial. In the last few days we have had a policeman telling off a woman for putting chalk lines outside her bakery, helpfully indicating the social distance her customers should preserve. He said it was graffiti.
Then we had a Boots assistant officiously taking a lipstick out of a customer's basket because it was "not essential". Would the idiot please explain why, if you are in Boots getting a prescription or toiletries or whatever, picking up a lipstick at the same time is spreading coronavirus? Worst of all was the experience of a poor soul who was refused topping up her electricity card in a shop because she was over 70. What exactly did the shop assistant expect her to do for fuel?
The police have set up a Stasi-style hotline for people to snitch on their neighbours and inevitably some busybodies are phoning in to report a second exercise session.
The rulebook reigns supreme and nowhere is this better illustrated than in the police stopping people from using their cars to get to beauty spots even if they don't see another soul in the process, let alone come too close to one. My own direct experience demonstrates the nonsense of this.
I am blessed by having Dartmoor on my doorstep.
If I take the car up there, I see nobody but if I walk up the lane instead then I encounter dog walkers, people cutting hedges, the postman etc. So it is plainly within the spirit of the lockdown to take the car.
Therefore if people want to drive some distance to achieve what I can do in half a mile, why not? The test must surely always be social distance. Please say so, Boris.