Lootman wrote:I wasn't making a point about all or any laws. But specifically the ones being discussed here i.e. the isolation and quarantine restrictions. And they go much further in suppressing liberty than maybe any other law I know of, banning things like leaving your home in some cases.
I recently spent 10 days in self-quarantine having entered the UK last month from overseas. It was not that onerous in and of itself, although perhaps only because it was only lightly enforced. Basically one 0300 phonecall a day asking if I was still quarantining. And a couple of self-administered covid tests.
A phone call at 0300 in the morning?
I believe there were regulations in previous plagues which made people stay indoors, but I'm no historian.
As regards being lightly enforced, this amazes me and I still cannot understand it. Just trust people to stay at home? - it's absurd and is asking for people to drive a coach and horses through the quantine regulations. There's no point in regulation unless someone is really going to enforce it with a pretty heavy hand. The way they do it, leaves too much to people to "rationalise" their abuse. As I believe you wrote yourself, people will push the line or go over it, and that's no way to control a pandemic.
Even in the day to day dealings, you see people all the time ignoring the regulations on the streets, on public transport, on beaches. I've seen policement walk past people without masks on a bus and just ignoring them. I've seen people flouting the regulations when most people in a carriage are obeying them, and everyone is too polite to say anything. Without masks, talking loudly, guffawing, coughing, sneezing spreading infection without a care for anyone else. I have moved to a different train carriage because I could stand it no more. These are the results of "light regulation" when even the police give the message that they aren't going to intervene, so some members of the public (generally 20 to 45 year olds are the worst) think it's OK to behave badly. Interestingly, those still at school are often the ones who are most careful - and that's because they get used to that proper behaviour in school.
It may well be that there were not enough resources to police this properly, but the way they did it virtually gives mischiefmakers carte blanche to do what they like - it's a mistake from freedom loving Boris, and tantamount to a public health disaster from the beginning.
Arb.