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Rarely has a mood of national solidarity been so carelessly sacrificed

Back in May, as the Government was preparing the “roadmap” out of its national lockdown measures, a Cabinet minister told me that he was worried that the public would not embrace their restored liberties. “If anything, we’ve been surprised by how readily people have complied,” he said. “There’s a concern that as we ease the restrictions they’ll be too nervous to go back to work or to go out and spend money.”

To some extent, this apprehension was justified. The phased relaxation of restrictions has not been accompanied by a festival of emancipation, a consumer spending spree, or a return to pre-pandemic commuting patterns.

Indeed, the polls suggest that the public wishes the Government would go further than the new three-tier system of local lockdowns announced by Boris Johnson on Monday. According to a YouGov poll published on October 9, 65 per cent support a short, sharp “circuit-breaker” closure — nationwide, rather than local — of the sort now championed by Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, and urged upon ministers three weeks ago by the Government’s own Sage group of scientific experts.

Yet the psychology underpinning such calls is more complicated than it was in the spring. The public may say it supports another national lockdown — albeit of shorter duration — but the mood of compliance that made the first closure possible in March has evaporated.

In its place is a patchwork of resentment, confusion and irritation. The rules have changed too often, with woefully inadequate explanation, and have frequently been absurdly anomalous in their application (why, for instance, are hunting and shooting exempt from the “rule of six”?). The management of localised lockdowns has been appallingly managed from the centre, and left municipal leaders baffled and furious. Public resentment at the present tangle of rules has bubbled up to the Westminster class, too: witness the rebellion last night of 42 Conservative MPs against the 10pm curfew on pubs and restaurants.

The test-and-trace system is a national joke. Ministers have scolded the public for coming forward for tests

The Government finds itself condemned, therefore, both for being too strict and for not being strict enough. And what this split in opinion reflects is something much more alarming for those trying to manage the renewed surge in cases of infection: namely, a breakdown in the spirit of amenable unity that was so evident when the Prime Minister instructed the public to stay at home on March 23.

What has changed? It is true that the ultimate basis of the regulations and restrictions is the Coronavirus Act 2020. But the psychological force that makes people follow the rules is not a fear of the law or of punishment, but what social scientists call “normative compliance”: which is to say, our inclination, individually and collectively, to abide by what we perceive as just and sensible guidelines. This impulse has much more to do with a sense of fairness and an expectation that the authorities will reciprocate with wise action, than with deterrence or deference. And here’s the rub. Since declaring the original lockdown in March, the Government has steadily eroded the “normative compliance” that it secured at the start. Without question, the symbolic turning-point was the Dominic Cummings scandal in May, when it emerged that the PM’s chief adviser had flagrantly broken the rules — and, worse, was not sacked.

In her excellent new book, Beyond The Red Wall, the pollster Deborah Mattinson observes the extent to which this Westminster soap opera cut through to electorate: “Now, for the first time, they were angry. The incident had ignited pent-up frustrations, simmering under the surface for weeks but now spilling over. Their fury was palpable.”

Meanwhile, the Government has failed to honour the public’s compliance by keeping its bombastic promises of speedy solutions, “ramping up” and “world-beating” initiatives. The test-and-trace system is a national joke. Ministers have been reduced to scolding the public for coming forward for tests in greater numbers than are feasible, and, in Jacob Rees-Mogg’s reliably insulting choice of language, for allegedly “carping” about the system’s failures.

Trials for the so-called “Moonshot”testing project have already been scaled back. Kate Bingham, the head of the Vaccines Taskforce, yesterday lowered expectations that the first wave of vaccines would be fully effective.

Rarely has a mood of national solidarity been so carelessly sacrificed. It be will hard, if not impossible, to restore. The real question is not whether a second national lockdown is on its way. The question is whether people — this time — will do as they are told.