Trust

The electorate in the UK has become so disengaged from politics that the common refrain about politicians of all hues from those who have disengaged is; "They're all corrupt." But they're not all obsessed with lining their own pockets from the public purse - only a minority are thus consumed. Johnson and his cronies have so undermined trust in the truth and government probity that this is the consequence and it's seen as normal and nothing to worry about anymore, because vast swathes of the electorate believe it won't change.

Calls for stricter Covid rules are met with the response of; ""Once they have control they don't let go." Johnson's administration, with its 80 seat majority, has already grabbed control of us without any need to impose Covid controls - bullying of regulators, challenges to the independence of the media, criminalising civil protest, restricting the right to vote, attacking the independence of MPs, challenging the judiciary by curtailing its powers and reversing its decisions, abandoning the Convention on Human Rights, there are well-sourced rumours of political interference in operational policing decisions and, don't forget, we have a Prime Minister who unlawfully suspended Parliament. All the Tory politicians ranting against the Covid Passport voted for the aforementioned, which definitely are policies to control us. The hypocrisy is simply unbelievable.

What's incredulous is that people have been persuaded to become complicit in this. Stricter Covid controls aren't being called for because of some conspiracy theory; scientists and people with a scintilla of sense are behind such calls for the purpose of flattening the curve and not overwhelming the NHS, and Johnson has time after time proved himself unwilling to impose Covid controls until it's too late and he is left with no other alternative. 

Even the Covid Passport implementation has all the hallmarks of incompetence and Boris' boosterism (if you'll pardon the pun). Evidence of a booster is needed and, unless you were lucky enough to get one of the early ones, it's now virtually impossible to get one. That hasn't got the fingerprints of Nazism all over it - the Nazis were rather efficient. 

Whining about a mild bit of inconvenience like a hysterical child simply won't cut the mustard in persuading me that it's a plot to curtail my freedoms in the long run and will lead to the gas chambers. Naturally, they will argue, the Nazis started out by looking after the interests of others.

As for many Conservative MPs eschewing wearing masks, well, I though bandits always wore masks. 

Just a word on Omicron and people saying that evidence from South Africa shows we don't need to be so concerned. 

1. It's bloody summer in South Africa for a start and winter here; people in South Africa aren't huddled indoors like us. That's the reason we have our flu season in winter.
2. Also they're getting a lot more sunshine there, as usually happens in summer, which results in them getting relatively higher doses of vitamin D, which we know contributes to a strong immune system. 
3. South Africa additionally has a much younger population than many European countries (27.6 in SA vs 40.4 in UK) and we know age plays an important role in mortality. 

Direct comparisons with South Africa are dangerous and lead to complacency unless all the pertinent variables are taken into account in the analysis. We simply don't know enough about the effects of Omicron yet and lowering defences in the absence of data is foolhardy in the extreme.