Though it already seems long ago, there was once genuine concern that the implementation of lockdowns would herald an Orwellian future — a “new normal” — long after COVID was surmounted. The warnings about nefarious intentions lying behind the lockdowns — theories that it was all a ploy for control and a normalisation of a level of authoritarianism that would remain indefinitely — now seem quaintly overblown. Just as suddenly as the lockdowns came, the lockdowns went. Everything opened up again, masks disappeared from public life, social distancing signs were gradually taken down, and the NHS Track and Trace app could safely be deleted. The whole period now fading into a hazy blur, one could be forgiven for misremembering it all as just a particularly long, depressing dream.

Understandably, there has been little appetite to dig up and relive the political drama of the lockdown periods. The new political divides that emerged with the lockdowns — the pro- and anti-maskers, the vaccine sceptics and wannabe refuseniks crushers — all went the way of the two-metre rule, reduced in the annals of history to an odd quirk in an altogether bizarre time. Yet even though the public has been keen to move on and forgive and forget the whole episode, the lockdowns provide a fascinating insight into the British public’s psyche, with continued ramifications for the relationship between state and citizenry.

What was remarkable about the British lockdowns was that they were largely self-enforced. The likes of Italy and France had to send out their gendarmes — armed officers under the military wings of the state — to erect roadblocks, set up checkpoints, and examine people’s papers to ensure they were strictly abiding by all the latest lockdown measures. Old Blighty, meanwhile, remained steadfast in its commitment to not being a “papers please” nation. Instead, the state could rely on its citizenry to largely police itself. Rules, enshrined in law, limited people from leaving the house unless they had a legally permitted valid reason. Yet, unlike its continental neighbours, Britain did not require people to carry forms proving that their outdoor excursion was for one of the legally permitted exemptions. In practice, the state made no effort to track whether people were exceeding their single outdoor daily exercise slot.

Instead, the British state was able to rely on the goodwill and the naturally law-abiding instincts of most of its citizens to keep to the rules of their own accord. Failing that, Britain’s army of nosy neighbours, empowered with a new-found sense of righteousness, could be trusted to grass up transgressors. Given that Britain’s police forces are already largely incapable of tackling what they dismissively refer to as “petty crime” (except for those guilty of sharing some intemperate social media posts), it was only thanks to Britain’s army of busybodies that the enforcement of the lockdowns was made logistically possible. The police did not have to be proactive and visit every pub, tape measure to hand, to ensure that punters were separated by the state mandated two-metre distance; over-zealous bouncers could be relied upon to give a stern telling-off to anyone whose stall had ventured slightly outside of the crude flaw markings, passively aggressively reminding them of everyone’s duty to “do their bit, yeah”. 

that mentality of taking glee in telling off those who transgress the latest state diktat … remains

Thankfully, those days are behind us. But that mentality of taking glee in telling off those who transgress the latest state diktat, revealed to be present in a sizable chunk of the population, remains. What the lockdowns revealed was the ease with which people could be convinced to harangue others for not abiding by new state mandates, no matter how dubious their scientific credentials, provided the framing was correct. And there proved no better framing than to invoke Britain’s secular religion: our NHS.

With COVID no longer a significant threat, new fronts are being opened in the fight to save our NHS. A particular enemy has been made of tobacco, which was able to unite the Conservatives and Labour in supporting Rishi Sunak’s attempt to create a “smoke-free generation” by banning tobacco sales for those born after 2009. Having failed to pass the Bill before the snap election, Labour have now enthusiastically taken the baton in the fight against smoking, with their rumoured ban on smoking in various outdoor locations showing they are keen to go even further than Sunak.

Given the glut of serious structural problems facing the country, focusing their attention on banning smoking in pub gardens — as well as banning disposable vapes and imposing minimum pricing on alcohol — seems an odd distraction. The police are already struggling to enforce the laws that currently exist, so adding yet another responsibility will do them no favours. Fortunately for them, Labour have taken a cue from the lockdown handbook, with Starmer claiming that action needs to be taken to “relieve the burden” on the NHS. The actual efficacy or health benefits of an outdoor smoking ban go unmentioned; instead, the mere invocation of the sacrosanct NHS is given as reason enough to support the measure.

As with the lockdowns, the logistics of enforcing the smoking ban will largely be left to the public, not the police. The busybodies will have their moment in the sun once again, empowered with a sense of righteousness that allows them to claim their pestering of those transgressing the new rules is not due to their personal dislike of smoking, but as part of a collective effort to save our NHS. After all, everyone has a duty to “do their bit, yeah”.

The police needn’t patrol deep into nightclub smoking areas; bouncers with a jumped-up sense of importance will happily take it upon themselves to find another reason to confront punters. Future generations may never suffer the harms of smoking, but they will also never get to experience briefly vacating the dancefloor to try out some abominable new pick-up lines. Who knows what removing the ever reliable “you got a light?” from people’s repertoire of openers will do to Britain’s plunging birth rate?

All that will be taken away by the lockdown-lifers, those unable to resist the power trip that comes with strictly enforcing each state dictate on others, and assiduously keen to ensure that no one is able to have too much fun, lest the NHS’s burden not be relieved. And thanks to those lockdown-lifers, even with COVID receding from memory, life will be the same, just a bit worse.