Most of the criticism surrounding Boris Johnson’s lockdown announcement was that it came too late
announced a partial lockdown in a sombre prime-time broadcast on March 23rd, polls put popular support for his decision at 93%. Criticism was less of the severity of the measure than that it came so late, long after most of the rest of Europe.
Even when the decision was made to do more to stop the disease, disagreement persisted over tactics. Mr Johnson’s instinctive liberalism sat ill with a compulsory lockdown enforced by the police. Accordingly, he chose to rely on moral suasion, not compulsion, to get people to work from home and avoid socialising. The government ordered the closure of pubs and restaurants only on March 20th, weeks after the rest of Europe.
What forced Mr Johnson’s lockdown decision was that the weekend of March 21st-22nd was the first properly warm one of the year. Thousands of people visited the seaside, Snowdonia and other recreational places, clogging the roads. Big crowds thronged into many of London’s parks. Efforts to remain two metres apart, as the prime minister urged, were notable mainly for their absence.
There are still holes. People who cannot do their jobs from home are supposed to go to work, so long as employers can keep them far enough apart, which is often tricky. The Tube remains a source of contagion: service reductions mean that rush-hour trains seem fuller than ever. Enforcement of the new rules is spotty: the police talk of small fines, but also suggest that their effort would be largely persuasive, not coercive.
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