There are many ways that anybody with a bit of time on their hands could use it worse than watching Lord Sumption’s recent lecture on “Government by Decree.”   His Lordship explains why the government’s slide towards “rule by decree,” is a dangerous erosion of democracy.  He cites examples in which both government ministers and the police, have assumed powers they do not, in actuality, possess.  His examples are primarily centred on the government response to Covid-19, which he sees as a dangerous disease, but not excessively so.

On the subject of le virus” (did you know that in French the “virus” is masculine, but “Covid-19” feminine ?  Ah, the wiles of the distaff side) let me concede at once, that in a sense he is right. There have been worse: the Spanish flu epidemic killed around 228,000 in the UK, a figure dwarfed by the Black Death (1348/9) which may have killed as many as 2m, estimates vary between 20 and 60% of the UK population.  The current toll for the virus is 45,365.   But in a sense he is wrong.  The figure for UK death attributed to the virus – dubious as it is  –  is arrived in the aftermath of best medical practice and with every trick known to government statisticians. So it is bad, probably very bad.  And it might get worse.   Nobody knows.

Lord Sumption is a lawyer and an historian, not a doctor. And on the subject of the legal implications of government action he is authoritative: he says the government have exceeded their powers.  It seems wilfully so.  He sees that this could escalate into a slide from democracy towards dictatorship – a word used recently, with chilling effect, by his peer, Lord Neuberger.  No doubt he is right. The very idea that government ministers can “instruct” the healthy bulk of the population – to give up rights of freedom of movement, and freedom of action – without proper Parliamentary scrutiny is clearly worrying, and that their decrees are then enforced – without a legal basis – by various police forces, certainly takes us a step nearer to being  a police state.

The key question is what can we do about it ? And his Lordship’s answer is illuminating: hold our democracy to account: question MPs, join in political debate. write, and even…  yes, blog.