Gone but not forgotten

This morning, we all wake up to the kind of government Orwell had nightmares about.

Across the planet there are two simultaneous infections raging, one very publicly, one covert but already well-established.

The first is the corona virus, the second is the rash of right-wing governments. It’s hard to say which will prove the more dangerous in the long run.

Here, in the UK, we have new government powers in a 300-page piece of legislation which details the draconian measures it needs to address the pandemic.

It makes you wonder how long this suite of measures has been on the stocks. It seems unlikely that the legislation has been drafted over the last fortnight. More likely that the pandemic has presented an opportunity to curtail civil liberties in a way that delights the hearts of the right-wing demagogues.

The government wished to review the legislation after two years, but agreed in the end to six-monthly reviews.

In the last decade, civil rights have been largely trashed. Rights that took years to achieve.

It feels crazily optimistic to think that the rights snatched away by the latest legislation will be given back without a fight when the storm of the pandemic has eased.

Civil rights and individual choice are so easily trampled.

For evil to triumph, it is sufficient that good men do nothing.