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A woman is detained by police officers as protestors from the Million Mask March and anti lockdown protestors demonstrate, amid the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak in London, Britain November 5, 2020. \u00a9 REUTERS \/ Henry Nicholls<\/p><\/div>\n
Chris Sweeney
\nRT.com<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve always been proud to say I\u2019m British \u2013 until now. The authorities\u2019 bloody-minded determination to implement lockdown rules at the expense of people\u2019s wellbeing is not what our great country should be about.<\/p>\n
Sometimes you can be too close. You are looking, but you don\u2019t see it. That\u2019s where I found myself this week with the current state of Britain, amid another round of ever tighter restrictions caused by the pandemic.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t get me wrong. There are loads of things I\u2019ve always loved about my country \u2013 our traditional British good manners for example. Rather than see it as a sign of weakness, I pride myself on our reputation for queuing in an orderly fashion. I also like that we hold the door open for the person behind us.<\/p>\n
I admire our outstanding National Health Service, which allows everyone to access medical treatment without having to dig out a credit card or an insurance plan. And I enjoy flying British Airways over far-flung lands, offering me some form of attachment \u2013 even if it is superficial.<\/p>\n
I won\u2019t apologise for tea being regarded as the boring and bland equivalent to freshly ground coffee \u2013 it\u2019s our drink, and I love it. And the way we honour our war heroes with the humble poppy is thoroughly respectful.<\/p>\n
But this week, some of that pride in being British died for me. It\u2019s a very different sentiment I\u2019m feeling. Beyond disillusionment. Fury even.<\/p>\n
How could Britain have fallen so far in the way it treats its own people?<\/p>\n
It began with the\u00a0horrifying detention<\/a>\u00a0of a 97-year-old grandmother by police in the Yorkshire town of Market Weighton. Her daughter, a qualified nurse, wanted to bring her home from a care home to look after her during lockdown and quietly wheeled her out of the home.<\/p>\n However somewhere along the line, a jobsworth felt the need to justify their existence and reported what had happened. The episode ended with her granddaughter in tears filming a video, showing her own mother in handcuffs inside a squad car, while the old woman sat in another car, completely bewildered.<\/p>\n The police\u2019s\u00a0response<\/a>? They were responding to\u00a0\u201ca report of assault.\u201d\u00a0<\/em>Incredible.<\/p>\n The horror continued as students at the University of Manchester\u2019s Fallowfield halls of residence awoke to find workers\u00a0erecting fences<\/a>\u00a0around their facility to ensure they couldn\u2019t leave. They were being installed following government guidelines asking students not to return to their permanent homes.<\/p>\n One student said:\u00a0\u201cThey’re huge metal barriers, they’re connected to one another and there’s literally no gaps\u2026.it makes it feel like we’re in a prison.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n In what version of the United Kingdom do we keep our bright, young people caged like dogs? Unsurprisingly, some of the outraged students began to rip them down, causing even more angst.<\/p>\n Another university using its power to force students to bend to its will is\u00a0world-famous Cambridge<\/a>. It announced that anyone who leaves its halls of residence won\u2019t be able to graduate or progress to the next year. That\u2019s despite each paying at least \u00a39,250 per academic session.<\/p>\n Then there was the\u00a0Ripped Gym<\/a>\u00a0in Harlow, Essex. It opted not to close, in breach of the government\u2019s latest lockdown. The morality of that is debatable, but the gym claims it didn\u2019t sell any long-term memberships and offered only day passes. Whatever you think of the decision, what is beyond argument is that it didn\u2019t need four police cars and approximately 20 officers to descend in a raid-style scenario.<\/p>\n Were they expecting John Gotti? Rather, it was a well-meaning business owner and some locals on treadmills. The owner ended up being dragged away and was still in police custody at the time of writing.<\/p>\n Contrast this with the most tragic occurrence, the death of\u00a0Corey Liversedge<\/a>. This 16-year old from Aberdeenshire took his own life as anxiety overcame him as a result of the suffocating nature of lockdown.<\/p>\n His grieving parents summoned the bravery to raise awareness of his plight, with his mother saying,\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s not just children with diagnosed mental health conditions \u2014 it can happen to any child, and Corey was any child.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Britain used to be a nation that cared. But now, it seems that the priority is treating any slight infraction of lockdown rules like a terrorist attack, while vulnerable people are left to struggle along on their own without help from the wider community.<\/p>\n