Matthew Hardy Profile picture
Senior lecturer, journal editor, cyclist, recovering architect. The Arsenal. Now @drmatthewhardy.bsky.social @drmatthewhardy@mstdn.social #FBPE #NAFO 💙🇺🇦

Sep 26, 2020, 5 tweets

Where is the evidence that early pub closures will lower infection rates? | Prospect Magazine prospectmagazine.co.uk/science-and-te…

"The 10pm curfew looks, then, worryingly like a cosmetic attempt to be seen to be “taking action” while in fact making a political calculation.

"Johnson’s unwillingness to court public disapproval by appearing to be a killjoy—the exact opposite of the ebullient, libertarian persona that got him into power—probably played a part in landing us in this predicament in the first place.

"Notoriously, his inordinate concern with “the inalienable right of free-born people of the United Kingdom to go to the pub” made him drag his feet over the lockdown in March, a delay that is now known to have cost thousands of lives.

"It’s not hard to see how Johnson might think a “pint in hand” image would chime with the demographic that supported his election on a ticket of “getting Brexit done,” and the government reinforced that image emphatically in post-lockdown photo opportunities."

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