Freedom is rarely taken, its usually surrendered.

KW: Foreward by Alan Hamilton.  A Must Read article for all of us in Lockdown, whilst our businesses and personal incomes are being laid to waste amidst a massive increase in government spending of borrowed money.  I’ve included a transcript of that interview below but by way of prefacing remarks, I want to say; what bothers me about the global response to this pandemic is that most nations within the G20 financial orbit (with a few notable exceptions) have defaulted to a single solution: a society-wide lock-down together with truly unprecedented government expenditure and indebtedness.
Is it really the case that nation-wide lockdowns are the only (or even the most appropriate) solution to this problem? In countries where the mortality rates are very low, Singapore, Japan and South Korea, proper public health measures appear to have been far more effective than total lockdowns. The economic consequences of a public health response to the crisis, rather than a political lockdown are  entirely different and the long-term social consequences will be too.
While President Trump is busying himself with questions and accusations about who is to blame for this crisis, a better question might be to ask; “Who benefits from the solution?”. The truly unimaginable debts that governments are quickly racking up around the world will be owed to someone. Who will that be? Much like the public remorse felt four or five years after our invasion of Iraq (to rid the country of WMD that turned out not to exist) will we be asking ourselves in just a few years’ time, “Who’s idea was the lock-down?
The idea that a total shut-down of the economy is an appropriate response to a disease pandemic is an extreme view. We need to see this for what it is. This is political extremism. This is not a normal, rational, measured, participative response to a crisis. This is another example of TINA (there is no alternative) politics. We should be very wary of such claims and look closely at who is making them.
On New Year’s Eve in 2019, while you were having drinks with some friends, which of you would have believed that within 3 months all of us (and half the world besides) would be living under medical martial law? Our situation is an extreme one and the idea that there are not hundreds of other actions that could be taken collectively to deal with this crisis in a responsible and efficient manner is simply ludicrous. It appears that all rational thinking at the social level has ceased. Panic has set in and the merchants of fear are in control. The long-term consequences of this will be dire – they already are for the million-plus Australians who have so far lost their livelihoods. And the longer the lockdown continues, the worse things will get.
It’s time we started asking hard questions of our leaders; for every action proposed, we need to ask: “What alternatives have you considered?” We need to look toward model nations like Singapore, Japan and South Korea and adopt the tactics they have adopted to preserve the integrity of their economy while controlling the disease. The time for blindly following the edicts of leaders who engender panic rather than responsibility is over.
If we’re going to survive this pandemic, we’ll do so first and foremost by recovering our senses.

Lord Sumption Speaks against Hysteria-Driven Government Coronavirus Policy.

Here is a  recording of the astonishing interview of Lord Sumption, a former member of the Supreme Court and last year’s Reith Lecturer,  on BBC Radio 4’s World at One today , Monday 30th March 2020. It is  by far the most high-powered criticism , made in public by a senior figure of considerable reputation and merit, of government policy on the corona virus. I shall be providing a transcript as soon as I can, but in the meanwhile I ask you to disseminate it as widely as possible, as I fear that other media may not do so in these strange times.

Lord Sumption interview begins at 17 minutes into BBC R4’s World At One 30th March 2020

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000gt59

Here is a transcript of the whole interview.

 The real problem is that when human societies lose their freedom, it’s not usually because tyrants have taken it away.   It’s usually because people willingly surrender their freedom in return for protection  against some external threat.     And the threat is usually a real threat but usually exaggerated.    That’s what I fear we are seeing now.   The pressure on politicians has come from the public.    They want action.    They don’t pause to ask whether the action will work.    They don’t ask themselves whether the cost will be worth paying.   They want action anyway.   And anyone who has studied history will recognise here the classic symptoms of collective hysteria.

Hysteria is infectious.     We are working ourselves up into a lather in which we exaggerate the threat and stop asking ourselves whether the cure may be worse than the disease.
Q    At a time like this as you acknowledge , citizens do look to the state for protection, for assistance, we shouldn’t be surprised then if the state takes on new powers, that is what it has been asked to do, almost demanded of it.
A    Yes that is absolutely true.    We should not be surprised.     But we have to recognise that this is how societies become despotisms.    And we also have to recognise this is a process which leads naturally to exaggeration.    The symptoms of coronavirus are clearly serious for those with other significant medical conditions especially if they’re old.    There are exceptional cases in which young people have been struck down, which have had a lot of publicity, but the numbers are pretty small.      The Italian evidence for instance suggests that only 12% of deaths is it possible to say coronavirus was the main cause of death.      So yes this is serious and yes it’s understandable that people cry out to the government.      But the real question is :    Is this serious enough to warrant putting most of our population into house imprisonment, wrecking our economy for an indefinite period, destroying businesses that honest and hardworking people have taken years to build up , saddling future generations with debt, depression, stress, heart attacks, suicides and unbelievable distress inflicted on millions of people who are not especially vulnerable and will suffer only mild symptoms or none at all, like the Health Secretary and the Prime Minister.
Q   The executive, the government, is all of a sudden really rather powerful and really rather unscrutinised.      Parliament is in recess, it’s due to come back in late April, we’re not quite sure whether it will or not, the Prime Minister is closeted away, communicating via his phone, there is not a lot in the way of scrutiny is there?
A   No.     Certainly there’s not a lot in the way of institutional scrutiny.    The Press has engaged in a fair amount of scrutiny, there has been some good and challenging journalism, but mostly the Press has, I think, echoed and indeed amplified the general panic.
Q   The restrictions in movement have also changed the relationship between the police and those whose, in name, they serve.    The police are naming and shaming citizens for travelling at what they see as the wrong time or driving to the wrong place.     Does that set alarm bells ringing for you, as a former senior member of the judiciary?
A   Well, I have to say, it does.     I mean, the tradition of policing in this country is that policemen are citizens in uniform.    They are not members of a disciplined hierarchy operating just at the government’s command.    Yet in some parts of the country the police have been trying to stop people from doing things like travelling to take exercise in the open country which are not contrary to the regulations, simply because ministers have said that they would prefer us not to.      The police have no power to enforce ministers’ preferences, but only legal regulations which don’t go anything like as far as the government’s guidance.   I have to say that the behaviour of the Derbyshire police in trying to shame people into using their undoubted right to take exercise in the country and wrecking beauty spots in the Fells so that people don’t want to go there, is frankly disgraceful.
This is what a police state is like.    It’s a state in which the government can issue orders or express preferences with no legal authority and the police will enforce ministers’ wishes.     I have to say that most police forces have behaved in a thoroughly sensible and moderate fashion.     Derbyshire Police have shamed our policing traditions.  There is a natural tendency of course, and a strong temptation for the police to lose sight of their real functions and turn themselves from citizens in uniform into glorified school prefects.    I think it’s really sad that the Derbyshire Police have failed to resist that.
Q   There will be people listening who admire your legal wisdom but will also say, well, he’s not an epidemiologist, he doesn’t know how disease spreads, he doesn’t understand the risks to the health service if this thing gets out of control.     What do you say to them?
A   What I say to them is I am not a scientist but it is the right and duty of every citizen to look and see what the scientists have said and to analyse it for themselves and to draw common sense conclusions.    We are all perfectly capable of doing that and there’s no particular reason why the scientific nature of the problem should mean we have to resign our liberty into the hands of scientists.    We all have critical faculties and it’s rather important, in a moment of national panic, that we should maintain them.
Q   Lord Sumption, former Justice of the Supreme Court, speaking to me earlier.