Lockdowns have shown authoritarianism can curb society’s excesses

Damian Wilson is a UK journalist, ex-Fleet Street editor, financial industry consultant and political communications special advisor in the UK and EU.

As a new report shows drunkenness in Spain has plunged, governments are realising that restrictions to ‘protect public health’ can address other problems. The public has to shake off its passiveness to prevent this happening.

At some point in the future, when we look back at the unprecedented and seemingly interminable authoritarian restrictions many have been forced to live under over the last year, we should ask ourselves, “What were we thinking?”

Because, as the tide of the coronavirus pandemic starts to recede unevenly around the globe, governments who brought in tough rules on movement and personal freedoms seem to be dragging their heels over a return to life as it was at the start of 2020, and there is a distinct lack of protest over their tardiness.

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