Sumption says

Luckygirl

The danger with opinions like his is that they serve as an excuse to do what you like and ignore the precautions. Many people who do that will not even understand his arguments; they will just see a justification for their anti-social behaviour.

I agree.

The danger with opinions like his is that they serve as an excuse to do what you like and ignore the precautions. Many people who do that will not even understand his arguments; they will just see a justification for their anti-social behaviour.

Lucca In my opinion (for what it's worth), it's because the UK was never tough and consistent enough with lockdowns that we're in the state we are. Add to that the fact that Test, Trace and Isolate never worked effectively, despite having billions thrown at it.

The latest fad seems to be mass testing, which is incredibly expensive and won't achieve much either, unless people are forced to self-isolate (with necessary support). In schools, even those who have been in contact with an infected person won't be sent home. Instead, they will stay at school and be tested regularly (well, that's the half-baked plan).

janeainsworth

Growstuff Just to be clear, I don’t agree with Sumption.
I think those who rail against state control and in favour of personal liberty are failing to distinguish between control exerted by the state for its own ends, and control exerted in the best interests of the people it serves, whether those interests are health & well-being, or economic.
That after all is the function of the state.

No problem janeainsworth. I didn't think you did agree.

I have a bit of a bee in my bonnet about people who have views like Sumption because I think they're very dangerous. Sumption and Keith Joseph once wrote a book in which they claimed that there is no argument for equality. Underpinning his philosophy is a belief in survival of the fittest. If you delve into the thinking behind Nazism, you'll find similar beliefs.

I'm with Sparklefizz. There is no way in the world that any society with millions of people can allow all its citizens to have total personal liberty.

janeainsworth

Growstuff Just to be clear, I don’t agree with Sumption.
I think those who rail against state control and in favour of personal liberty are failing to distinguish between control exerted by the state for its own ends, and control exerted in the best interests of the people it serves, whether those interests are health & well-being, or economic.
That after all is the function of the state.

Agree. And look how Australia has clamped down in the virus with a proper test and trace system and enforced quarantine (recent outbreak in Sydney was caused by American arrivals who disobeyed the rules....) plus border closure between states and I don’t think you could describe that as a country with excessive state control?
I personally have read sumptions views before and don’t think I will again.

Yes, jane. We all have a measure of state control otherwise we'd be driving all over both sides of the road in all directions etc etc

Growstuff Just to be clear, I don’t agree with Sumption.
I think those who rail against state control and in favour of personal liberty are failing to distinguish between control exerted by the state for its own ends, and control exerted in the best interests of the people it serves, whether those interests are health & well-being, or economic.
That after all is the function of the state.

Good posts growstuff. Thanks for sharing.

The UK has 66,000 recognised deaths. It's likely there have been more, but anybody who takes more than 28 days to die is no longer recognised as a Covid death.

Sumption is primarily a medieval historian. One of his arguments is that the human race has survived pandemics before and has become stronger. From a historical point of view, there is a logic to this point of view. After the Black Death, which possibly killed half the population, workers were scarce and able to ask for higher wages. It was a catalyst for for the decline of the feudal system and was a major cause for social change.

Sumption is a supporter of so-called herd immunity, which has never been achieved without a vaccine and would involve killing up to a million people. It's a form of social Darwinism (survival of the fittest) and Malthusian theory (population control). It was the underlying principle in the disastrous model in Sweden and underlies much of the thinking in the early stages of the pandemic in the UK.

He and others have used this argument to justify their libertarianism, although the two theories are not logically connected.

Sumption has the right to express his view. Others have every right to consider the consequences and to disagree with him.

And this one:

www.gransnet.com/forums/coronavirus/1276349-Anyone-agree-with-Lord-Sumption

www.gransnet.com/forums/.../1279032-Civil-liberty-and-Covid-19

This thread?

The article is dated May 9, 2020, and quotes something written by Lord Sumption even earlier in the pandemic.

It's possible that 50,000 deaths later, and with the NHS close to breaking point in some parts of the country in the face of a third wave, and with a new mutation of the virus thought to be much more transmissible, Lord Sumption might have moderated his views on the balance between personal liberty and state control exercised in the interests of the community in the face of a pandemic.

But maybe not.

Half arsed lockdowns seem not to work

"Half arsed lockdowns" rely on the compliance and goodwill of the public to do the right thing, and unfortunately there hasn't been enough of that.

People complain about being treated like children, and then they behave like children and whine about rules.

Baggs Thanks for posting this article . I’m not saying I agree with it but it’s good to have another viewpoint on GN.

Bathsheba

^My friend lives in China. When he had to quarantine his door was sealed with an alarm. Had he tried to leave the flat the police would have been notified immediately. He was in lockdown for months & months.^

What happened when food supplies were delivered? (As I'm assuming they must have been periodically, or he'd have died anyway). Were they delivered under armed guard?

Quarantine had to organise food supply in advance. If people were quarantined in hotels it was delivered. Lockdown could visit one shop in the apartment block.

My friend lives in China. When he had to quarantine his door was sealed with an alarm. Had he tried to leave the flat the police would have been notified immediately. He was in lockdown for months & months.

What happened when food supplies were delivered? (As I'm assuming they must have been periodically, or he'd have died anyway). Were they delivered under armed guard?

Jane10

*Nezumi65*- gosh. Drastic measures in Wuhan.

He isn’t in Wuhan - I suspect they were even more drastic there.

Point being though drastic measures do work (look at New Zealand for example) but we haven’t ever taken drastic measures.

Half arsed lockdowns seem not to work

That is always assuming that we believe the figures released by China are honest and true.

Nezumi65- gosh. Drastic measures in Wuhan.

Sarnia

Thanks for this article. A voice of reason. I earlier read an account of what life is like in Wuhan now, where it is thought Covid-19 originated. They have had no new cases since May and life seems to be back on track. How have they managed that? Do our politicians/scientists compare notes with other countries? Perhaps they should because we cannot keep living like this.

My friend lives in China. When he had to quarantine his door was sealed with an alarm. Had he tried to leave the flat the police would have been notified immediately. He was in lockdown for months & months.

I am in tier one, but just a walk down the road takes me into South Wales - how can tier one be safe within walking distance of a place with some of the worst infection rates on the country? It is all so random and encourages dissent and non-cooperation. What a pity that all parts of the UK cannot just pull together - but how can they when they are all trying to be realistic but BJ is in cloud cuckoo land?

I am happy to read whatever someone publishes; but we are in a very serious situation and if anything that is written persuades just one person that they can ignore the necessary precautions, then that one person becomes 2, then those two become four.............and so on.

There are those out there who are making this pandemic worse by finding reasons to ignore the precautions - we do not need people, however erudite, feeding these folk with more excuses.

We have a mutated virus (as they always do) which has greater infectivity - we ALL have to take this seriously.

Interesting to hear about Sweden and now South Korea, the other much vaunted 'success story' is in trouble too. With many of the other European countries in the same situation as us its hard to know how it could all have been best handled. Maybe just no easy answers.

A man whose intellect I respect and who is always worth listening to, but this time I believe he is wrong.
Sweden was the example of a country which eschewed lockdown and at first that course of action seemed to be vindicated.
But not now- their deaths both in care homes and in the community have risen exponentially and even the King has apologised publicly for what appears to have been a misguided policy.