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They lost seats to a party that wanted even longer lockdowns enforced even more harshly. The simple fact remains that Boris opposed lockdowns. Many senior Tories did; there was more hostility toward lockdowns in the UK government than in any comparable Anglo country, and almost all of Europe, outside of some of the most conservative state governments in the US.
The Tories u-turned after all neighboring countries had implemented harsh lockdowns and after the press (which was normally quite pliant) began an extreme campaign of fear-mongering. Cummings (supposedly intelligent, although I think he’s clearly shown himself otherwise) then panicked and told Boris that he had better implement lockdowns or risk some kind of popular revolt if the UK’s death rate was much higher than other countries.
The UK worships arr en haech ess, and arr enn haech ess was (according to the press and itself) about to be overwhelmed with corpses and dying grandmothers who had survived the Blitz only to die because Boris didn’t lock down the country. In this context, they made a poor decision. It is worth remembering, though, that even on this right wing forum there were many people advocating harsh lockdowns.
And if Labour was in charge to do the even longer lockdowns enforced even more harshly, Labour would have been kicked out by voters after the economy was even worse. Voters might not understand that lockdowns are the reason the economy is fucked, but they'll punish the incumbents for it all the same.
All neighboring countries had not implemented harsh lockdowns.
Cummings was pro-lockdown very early. This seemed to be more out of some infatuation with perceived Asian efficiency/superiority leading to a desire to randomly copy China, rather than any coherent explanation of why lockdowns might work. Only after he broke lockdown restrictions was this memory-holed and the story changed to one where he wasn't supporting them from early on.
As for the idea of a popular revolt over the government not imprisoning you hard enough, how is it coherent to revolt with demand to be imprisoned? If you organically fear covid, why would you pour out into the streets to overthrow a government to replace it with one that will imprison you? Slavish obedience to government and revolt do not go hand in hand.
Which fails to explain why the press would claim that the NHS was about to be overwhelmed and that lockdowns would cause it to not be overwhelmed, leaving the origin of the policy unexplained.
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