Beware big state Conservatism policed by little Hitlers

Spring forward: that is a useful mnemonic for those who have difficulty in turning the clocks the right way. It is also timely. The country does seem to have a spring in its step. Lent will shortly end, and with it, life is losing other Lenten aspects. Good weather is promised. The Covid figures continue to improve and the vaccination programme moves steadily ahead, in a delightful contrast to the incompetence and envious snarling on the Continent.

Yet in official circles, there is still a reluctance to succumb to good news. As regards the scientists, this is understandable. Cheerfulness can be left to the politicians. The men and women in lab coats have to keep an eye on the worst-case scenario.

Even so, the rest of us have grounds for optimism. As someone who was in favour of herd immunity, was reluctant to abandon my scepticism and then went down with a mildly serious dose of the plague, I may be thought to lack credibility on that subject. But time has moved on. We can now look forward to a post-Covid future, at least in one sense.

Covid is not like small-pox. Although we may hope that the future strains will become less virulent and less life-threatening, it cannot be eradicated and is likely to be a permanent feature of the British winter, as flu is. The comparison with flu is worth pursuing. 2019/20 was a very mild winter for that disease. As a result, there were many fewer fatalities than normal among the frail and elderly, who survived to die of Covid. Last winter, flu hardly got a look-in. So we are due an increase in flu cases, and fatalities.

But it is unlikely to be as bad as 1968/69. Then, flu killed 30,000 people. There must have been quite a brisk daily death-rate. Yet there was no panic, let along calls for lockdown. Those who did not die just got on with life.

That is surely the example which we ought to follow now. This winter, there will be deaths from Covid and flu. Those who succumb will mainly be the ones whose lives were drawing peacefully to a close. Otherwise, the victims will be small in number, and very unlucky. The rest of us will be far more at risk from the roads than we will from either virus.
So life can more or less return to normal. One important person cannot wait for that to happen. To use the modern idiom, Rishi Sunak gets it. Although he may not feel able to be wholly explicit on the topic, he knows that the prospects for the British economy depend on animal spirits.

Some of the latest figures have been encouraging. Unemployment is lower than predicted, productivity higher, and inflation is still quiescent. But more than that is required for a full recovery. We need a return of consumer confidence, investor confidence and employer confidence. Then we can make a decisive break from furlough and ever-increasing demands on welfare. Once all that happens, and growth surges ahead, the Chancellor might allow himself a measure of cautious relaxation. Who knows? He may even privately concur with President Reagan: “The deficit is big enough to look after itself”. This all depends on keeping the future threat from Covid in perspective.

Others need to do something similar. When I was a small boy, my parents and their friends would often talk about little Hitlers. By this they meant characters like the air-raid warden in Dad’s Army, who had enjoyed the War, far from the front line, because it gave them the chance to boss people around: “Don’t you know there’s war on?” The term died out in the 1960s, at the same time as the British catering industry recovered from the era of “Brown or clear and brown’s off.”

In recent years, there has been a resurgence of little Hitlerism (fortunately, there is no sign of wartime mores returning to what is left of the catering industry). This is partly a function of the growth of the state. Officials have either been granted new powers or have arrogated them to themselves. Ministers and their departments have found it easy to govern by the use of statutory instruments, many of which create new regulations and new offences, while largely avoiding scrutiny.

Inevitably, all this has been accelerated by Covid. To an extent, this was justifiable. Measures had to be taken, even if these sometimes interfered with the liberties of the subject. But it is vital that post-1945 does not become a precedent. Then, even though the war was over, many wartime controls, such as rationing and identity cards, stayed in place for years. Long after VE, the little Hitlers could go on having their fun.

We must not repeat that mistake after VV day (V for virus, rather than C for Covid). Virus-related powers have just been renewed for six months; that was too long. One month would have been better. When it comes to the expanded jurisdiction which the government has sought over Covid, the word “temporary” should be at the forefront of every official mind.

This includes the police. A policeman’s lot has never been an easy one. This is particularly true when the constabulary finds itself potentially in conflict with the law-abiding classes. There are no easy answers. It is tempting to paraphrase Goldilocks’s porridge. The police often appear to be either too hard or too soft. It seems difficult to get it just right. It will be better all round when the police no longer have to concern themselves with the consequences of Covid; when they, and the rest of us, can return to living the life we loved, as the PM put it. (Mind you, should Boris really be allowed to return to leading the life he loved?)

Yet even when the threat of Covid is receding, we will still have to deal with the problem which preceded it. Big government Conservatism can have positive aspects. But we must beware of big state Conservatism and big regulation Conservatism, both policed by little Hitlers. That is not why we fought the War, and fought off the virus.