‘Authoritarian public health has won’
2 January 2024
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In the Media
Shadow Monetary Policy Committee quoted in The Telegraph
2 January 2024
Economics
Labour Market
Christopher Snowdon writes in Spiked
IEA Head of Lifestyle Economics Christopher Snowdon has written for Spiked outlining his pessimistic predictions for lifestyle freedom in 2024.
Christopher wrote:
“Post-Covid Britain could have gone one of two ways. After roughly 18 months of the most intrusive hyper-regulation of personal behaviour in modern history, the public could have demanded an era of untrammelled freedom to make up for lost time. Or the government could have decided that it rather liked the ‘health at all costs’ approach and doubled down on the public-health authoritarianism. As we reach the end of 2023, it is obvious that there will be no ‘Roaring Twenties’ in the UK. Authoritarian public health has won. The government has stopped even pretending to care about personal freedom.
“Anyone who speaks out against the tidal wave of pathological paternalism is accused of not caring about the health of the nation – or, worse still, seeking to undermine ‘our precious NHS’. But none of this is about health. It’s about control. As this foul year draws to an end, I leave you with the words of HL Mencken, who wrote in 1918, as the US lurched towards its own prohibition, that ‘the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary’. ‘Public health’ summed up.”
Read Christopher’s full piece here.
Christopher wrote:
“Post-Covid Britain could have gone one of two ways. After roughly 18 months of the most intrusive hyper-regulation of personal behaviour in modern history, the public could have demanded an era of untrammelled freedom to make up for lost time. Or the government could have decided that it rather liked the ‘health at all costs’ approach and doubled down on the public-health authoritarianism. As we reach the end of 2023, it is obvious that there will be no ‘Roaring Twenties’ in the UK. Authoritarian public health has won. The government has stopped even pretending to care about personal freedom.
“Anyone who speaks out against the tidal wave of pathological paternalism is accused of not caring about the health of the nation – or, worse still, seeking to undermine ‘our precious NHS’. But none of this is about health. It’s about control. As this foul year draws to an end, I leave you with the words of HL Mencken, who wrote in 1918, as the US lurched towards its own prohibition, that ‘the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary’. ‘Public health’ summed up.”
Read Christopher’s full piece here.
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