The government professes to defend ancient rights, but its new laws crack down on our most basic freedoms
Boris Johnson is a freedom-loving libertarian: this is the yarn spun by much of the British commentariat. “If Boris Johnson has a political philosophy,” suggested ITV’s political editor, Robert Peston, earlier this year, “it is that he will not restrict our liberties unless there is an overwhelming reason to do so.”
That our prime minister failed repeatedly – last March, September and December specifically – to take decisive action to crush the pandemic, and delayed lockdowns in England, leading to one of the world’s worst death tolls, is thus attributed to an excessive attachment to ancient liberties rather than to the self-defeating prioritisation of economic interests over human life. His acolytes at the Spectator, where he was once editor, also like to relay breathless tales of Johnson railing “against the nanny state tendency”. At the office he would delight in seeing a “no bikes” sign covered by bikes. How cute!
