Last week marked 5 years since the worst policy decision of any government, namely locking down society in an attempt to control a virus. I opposed it from the start.
In that piece, on March 18th 2020, around about the time Ireland was locking down, I wrote:
THE same people who tell us that we cannot under any circumstances torture a terrorist to save the lives of 1,000 people, perhaps 10,000 innocent people, as torture ‘fundamentally compromises our democratic values’, are the same people who tell us we should shut the entire country down over the coronavirus. So far, it has killed 56 people in the UK.
On Monday, the Prime Minister, perhaps having little choice given the pressure put on him by the hysterical media class, decided that yes, we will crash the entire British economy and restrict the liberty of freeborn citizens because of the coronavirus.
No doubt the schools will be closed, suspending the education of an entire generation of children.
There will be bailouts of industry after industry, the cost of which will be borne by that same next generation whose education we will destroy.
Five years on, there is a fair bit of buyer’s remorse – just look at poor John yesterday, who wasn’t even the worst of them (though I did try to tell him at the time, it took him weeks to figure it out).
Turns out, lockdown was quite damaging for children. I told you that at the time and I was accused of being a granny killer and compared to Harold Shipman for my troubles.
I was living with my family in the UK at the time, and from day one I was a vocal opponent of lockdown, for all the good it did me.
This is how insane it got: Early on, Stephen Daisley at the Spectator asked out loud whether I wanted him dead.
“Does Laura Perrins want me dead? The conservative commentator is coruscating about the government’s Covid-19 response. She abhors the lockdown and demands it be lifted immediately. ‘This lockdown and the extension on the 7th is the biggest error in British politics since WW1,’ she says. I am in the ‘at high risk’ group three times over and would quite like to go on living, if you don’t mind.”
Daisley, “Dissenters like Perrins are not popular at the moment. Plenty of people (myself included) feel a flash-fire of rage every time they pop up with their lockdown protestations.”
No, we were not popular.
And “Perrins’ perspective may be resented but the lonely voice of doubt usually is. Doubt used to be a virtue, the thinking man’s second rattle of a locked doorknob, but it has become a marker of provocateur anti-intellectualism. Perrins might or might not have a point but in a time of state edicts against family gatherings and police threats to inspect shopping baskets, isn’t it wise to have someone asking if we are doing the right thing?”
Yes, yes it is. But I can hand on heart say it wasn’t easy. In fairness to Daisley he did acknowledge that there would be a huge mental health fall – out after lockdown.
In fact, re-reading the piece Daisley was far more generous than others. He was a rare voice in tackling some of the lockdown sceptics arguments head on instead of dismissing us all as granny killers. For the record I did not want Stephen Daisley dead, although in my darkest hour I couldn’t say the same for Boris.
Five years later, I can say I told you so as I read piece after piece mourning the fall-out of lockdown. The latest was this in the Guardian.
“When it comes to disasters, children are habitually “ignored and mistreated”, according to the disasters expert Prof Lucy Easthope. So five years ago, when schools were told to close and lessons went online, a siren went off inside her. The lockdown terrified me,” she said. The government’s planning was focused on keeping children safe, but many were at increased risk from domestic and family abuse at home. The introduction of online schooling, meanwhile, broke the hard-earned social contract between schools and parents “for a lifetime.”
Terrified, you say. I do not remember Professor Lucy Easthope opposing the closing of schools during lockdown at the time. Yet it terrified her. I don’t remember hearing her on my radio speaking up for the fundamental rights of children to an education. You know, speaking up when it counts. The point being that politicians are far more likely to listen to Professor Lucy Easthope than the likes of me. But I suspect she stayed silent at the time. If she did raise concerns anywhere in the public sphere at the time, I stand corrected.
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Also, the government’s aim in closing schools was absolutely not to keep children safe. They didn’t care about the children. Covid – 19 represented zero risk to most children (other than those with underlying conditions who I was accused of not caring about by Stephen Nolan late one night, goodness that was a traumatic interview). The schools were closed to protect the old people. Children were seen as vectors, not people, dangerous vectors and a risk to older people therefore they were made to sacrifice their education, their right to play, their right to develop their language skills etc, for the older people. It used to the the case that older generations sacrificed for the rising generation. Lockdown changed that.
The Guardian again, “Schools are still dealing with “terrifyingly high levels of school avoidance”, said Easthope. But where once parents and teachers worked together to help a school-refusing child back into class, suddenly there were parents who could no longer see the value of school.” Shocked I tell you. Shocked. The government imposed a policy that closed schools and kept children at home and this resulted in some parents valuing school less. I think you should have seen this coming.
The Guardian again:
“Five years on the fallout continues. Uncertainty, increased inequality, accelerated screen use and crippling anxiety are just a few of the Covid legacies affecting children and young people. Covid babies are now five and struggling to meet basic developmental milestones; 1.6 million children in England are still persistently absent from school; and students whose university years were stolen by the pandemic are still struggling with low mental health.”
I’m sure it was all worth it. Children and babies can’t vote after all.
What also annoys me is that this was all a foreseeable consequence of such a dangerous policy and anyone in politics or the media who tells you otherwise are either liars or very negligent. Also, the Guardian was very, very pro-lockdown and when there was talk of the schools returning it was very pro-teacher union who didn’t want the schools re-opened. The teachers had to be dragged back to the classroom and told to do the job they were being paid to do. And the Guardian backed them all the way.
This is why I try not to think about those dark years of lockdown. Did I like being compared to Harold Shipman? No I did not. Did I like commentators in the Spectator wondering out loud if I wanted them dead? No I did not. But I said what I thought was right at the time and five years on I’ve been proved correct.
Lockdown, a dangerous stupid policy decision then, which turned out to be a dangerous and stupid policy decision five years on.
I told you so.