When British Prime Minister Boris Johnson during his address to the kingdom on Tuesday sought to explain why some people had failed to follow the COVID-19 rules, he had a surprising explanation: They’re just too British.
“We have kept that virus at bay. But we have to acknowledge this is a great and freedom-loving country, and while the vast majority have complied with the rules, there have been too many breaches — too many opportunities for our invisible enemy to slip through undetected,” Johnson said.
The message prompted obvious questions: How fervent is Britain about freedom, and how has that affected its COVID-19 response?
Sunder Katwala, director of thinktank British Future, is sceptical that breaches of the rules are the result of a innate libertarian streak.
“British people are actually quite authoritarian,” Katwala said. “There is a difference from what the political elite, left and right, say about something like, we would never ban the burqa, and what the public say — which is that they would.”
Adam Drummond, associate director of polling agency Opinium said that in the current crisis, the same rules persist.
Since COVID-19 hit, “the British public will always choose the more ‘safety-first’ option,” Drummond said. “Objections to lockdown measures are a minority pursuit.”
Drummond points to polls finding the British public backing the ban on gatherings of more than six people by 66 percent to 15 percent, compulsory masks by 74 percent to 11 percent, and quarantine for returning holidaymakers by 64 percent to 13 percent.
Deborah Mattinson, cofounder of BritainThinks and author of a new book, Beyond the Red Wall: Why Labour Lost, How the Conservatives Won and What Will Happen Next?, notes a 2018 survey which found that when asked to select the three ideas that most embodied British values, respondents chose “being proud to be British,” “respect for the rule of law,” and “being polite.”
“Valuing individual freedoms” came seventh, fractionally below “having a Sunday roast.”
“I thought what [Johnson] said was quite muddled,” Mattinson said. “Freedom is not the thing that people are most motivated by, especially right now — and in those red wall seats [constituencies that traditionally support the Labour Party], the people he is really keen to communicate with, ideas like pride come way higher in terms of what people think of as quintessentially British.”
While Johnson tied his vision of British libertarianism to rule breaking, Katwala said that the evidence suggests otherwise.
To begin with, younger people are three times more likely to oppose the UK’s new COVID-19 measures than those aged 65 and older — yet they tend to be left of center and far removed from the prominent critics of lockdown in the public sphere.
“Those people feel cooped up, they are politically disaffected. It’s not some big ideological commitment, it’s not ‘I’m a free-born Englishman’ — it’s just they’ve had enough,” Katwala said. “Frustration is high, scepticism in principle is very, very low.”
James Weinberg, a lecturer in political behavior at the University of Sheffield who is researching politics in an age of distrust, said that all the evidence shows adherence is much more strongly linked to psychological or demographic profile than principles.
“The people who break the rules, they’re usually doing it because they feel they have no choice — they’re on precarious contracts, or living in multi-occupancy households,” Weinberg said. “The desire to turn this into a jingoistic idea of what it is to be British might be appealing to certain politicians, but it rings quite hollow on the ground.”
Instead of ideology, qualitative work undertaken by BritainThinks suggests that the likelihood of public adherence to the rules is driven by confidence and understanding of exactly what they are, Mattinson said.
“Yes, there is increasing frustration with the rules, but that’s not about having them, that’s about struggling to follow them because they’re seen as confusing and inconsistent and a bit unfair,” she added.
Correspondingly, most polls show higher levels of confidence in the British government and willingness to follow lockdowns when the rules have been simplest, even if they were also more draconian.
The pattern of the public’s willingness to wear masks offers a clear example of the broader British approach, Katwala said.
In April, a poll found that only 16 percent had already worn a mask — which was among the lowest numbers in the world. However, 74 percent said they would do so if they were told to, and after the guidlines changed, adherence shot up to 83 percent. Only 4 percent said they would refuse a mask for reasons of personal freedom.
“If you don’t have to do so, it’s not very ‘us,’” Katwala said. “But if we’re under instruction, that means there’s good evidence. People actually want to be told whether or not to do things at the moment.”
Just one question remains, then: Who was Johnson talking to?
One explanation is that his message wasn’t for the public at all, Mattinson said.
“I think the audience he had in mind for that line was his more libertarian backbenchers,” she said. “He will feel has to keep his own tribe onside throughout all this.”
Or maybe it’s even closer to home.
“I think Johnson is obviously a very liberal Conservative,” Katwala said. “His image of the public is his image of himself.”
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
As former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wrapped up his visit to the People’s Republic of China, he received his share of attention. Certainly, the trip must be seen within the full context of Ma’s life, that is, his eight-year presidency, the Sunflower movement and his failed Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, as well as his eight years as Taipei mayor with its posturing, accusations of money laundering, and ups and downs. Through all that, basic questions stand out: “What drives Ma? What is his end game?” Having observed and commented on Ma for decades, it is all ironically reminiscent of former US president Harry