Policing the virus crisis --now updated

N Cohen used to be an enjoyable read. Then came Brexit.Then the Labour leadership. And we lost him to a world of resentment, self-pity and class hatred. But now he's back with a word or two of wisdom:

We must take drastic action but let’s not turn into a nation of little tyrants

Fear is pushing us into a dictatorial future...The worst newspapers and TV channels are merely looking to incite pleasurable feelings of outraged self-righteousness ...[with]...trashy stories about hordes of egomaniacs putting everyone else’s health in danger. Their pictures of panic buyers cramming supermarket trolleys without a thought for others reflect a mere 3% of shoppers, retail market researchers found...If you saw the shots of passengers crammed into the London Underground, apparently without a care for the spread of disease, they could be taken only because the service has been so reduced that a few people pack what trains are running.

Ferguson [Govt adviser and leading Imperial College modeller]... told parliament that “very large-scale testing and contact tracing” would allow the economy to restart once the peak had passed.

The professor was euphemistically describing the replacement of the blanket dictatorship of a lockdown state with what Jeremy Cliffe of the New Statesman grimly christened “the bio-surveillance state”.... [Governments] are using surveillance technology to confine carriers of the virus and their contacts to the modern equivalents of the medieval leper colonies or Victorian tuberculosis sanatoriums.

Leap forward a month, and you can see the state requiring citizens to produce documentation showing that it is safe for them to return to normal life or travel abroad. In just three days last week, and with barely a voice raised in opposition, parliament gave the state extraordinary powers to control freedom of movement, and then shut itself down....It will matter that our police and prime minister do not want to be draconian and that the supreme court will hear urgent appeals by video link rather than running away as parliament has done.

An awareness of 'outraged self-righteousness' and 'trashy stories' in the Observer over Brexit would have been welcome.

Meanwhile, examples of police punitive zeal in the Sunday Times [subscription] :

The enforcement of social distancing sank to new depths when Derbyshire police arrived at a beauty spot known as the Blue Lagoon and poured in dye to turn it black... visitors were gathering in bright sunshine at the quarry pool in Buxton...“This type of gathering is in contravention of the current instruction of the UK government,” a police statement warned. “We used water dye to make the water look less appealing.”...Some police forces are encouraging residents to report people who breach the rules...Several rural constabularies have been turning away camper vans and caravans seeking to self-isolate in picturesque spots.

STOP PRESS:
It turns out that this story is abit skewed. The 'lagoon' is badly polluted and the local Council frequently dye it black to stop idiots swimming in it. A combination of Derbyshire sarcasm that fooled the ST, and paranoia about rozzers had me convinced. Sorry all round.