"The scrutiny provided by our legislature was absent when it was most required.
The social costs of lockdown are extraordinary: the burden of proof for every day it was maintained should have been more extraordinary still. +
"It should never have been down to a cabinet, let alone the coronavirus quad or a poorly prime minister, to decide when rights we have taken for granted since Magna Carta should be restored: their suspension should have needed justifying daily, with the bar set high. +
We should be profoundly concerned at the precedent: the legislation was fatally flawed by the omission of a dead man’s switch, such that civil liberties would be restored automatically the moment their suspension was not overwhelmingly and objectively justified. +
We needed checks and balances at every point. Presented with accurate data from the ground (rather than output from models) the government should have been not just enabled, but compelled, to say: the evidence has changed, we’ve changed our mind: no harm, no foul. +
Some backbenchers made this point, but couldn’t get us out of the eel-trap."
5th June: thecritic.co.uk/issues/july-au…
But now: bravo, and thank you: @SteveBakerHW , @SirGrahamBrady and every other MP trying to get us out of this fix.
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