Thread by @libcomorg

There's a more general problem, hinted at but not made explicit in this piece, that the framing of pro-lockdown vs denialism is handing over analysis of the pandemic to two extremely right wing narratives that don't even disagree that much.

https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1315953495460192258

Lockdown, as it existed from March, combined some necessary things (shutting down mass public events in poorly ventilated buildings) with completely arbitrary, authoritarian, counter productive stuff like banning people from sitting down in parks or going for long walks.

Lockdown as re-introduced yesterday with Tier 3 restrictions, bans sitting two metres away from your mate in the park, but allows you to sit 1m from a stranger inside a pub as long as you've both ordered a meal.

It is fucking ridiculous to be 'pro-lockdown' in any of these circumstances. However a lot of people more or less accepted lockdown in March, because it was it was tied to the furlough scheme, self employment support, closing of schools and higher education.

That financial support, to stop working, was massively inadequate, and was wound down from August at the same time hundreds of millions of pounds was spent on subsidising people to eat inside restaurants.

As lockdown is reintroduced now there is still no adequate financial or other support for people expected to self isolate for two weeks due to a positive test result or contact tracing. This is now (or would be if contact tracing worked) tens of thousands of people every day.

So 'lockdown' prohibits quite safe social contact like chatting outside, while encouraging risky social contact like eating inside, as long as you don't actually socially interact with the people you're sharing air with.

People know this is bullshit, so it feeds into the denialist wing, fully represented in the Tory cabinet but also from places like Spiked. Which in the name of libertarianism wants to shut in the elderly and disabled for months (or more realistically just let them die en masse).

The denialist wing *also* has no interest in a social safety net for people who get sick and need to self isolate, because their analysis is premised on intentionally getting as many young people sick as possible.

So if you don't think people should be arrested or fined for sitting down in parks, or chatting to their neighbours across the street, then you should be really careful not to conflate taking Covid-19 seriously with 'lockdown': that"s what both right wings definitely want.

Slight correction on this tweet, Tier 3 apparently does allow meeting in parks, unlike in March, but you can't meet in a garden.

https://twitter.com/libcomorg/status/1315961569923264512