It’s clear that we need tougher lockdowns. The question now is how do we make them more effective?

Editorial: Keir Starmer’s call for a national lockdown may well be the only way to get Covid under control – but it risks undermining vital popular support

The lockdowns will have to be tighter. That is the difficult, unpleasant and damaging conclusion that the UK has drawn from the surge in Covid cases. The prime minister effectively acknowledged this on television on Sunday (3 January) and he was stating the obvious. Sir Keir Starmer, leader of the opposition, has gone further. He called for an immediate national lockdown within 24 hours.  

New daily cases have been above 50,000 for four days running and as yet there is no evidence of any slackening of the rate of transmission. Deaths sadly are climbing too. It might seem some modest comfort that excess deaths – deaths from all causes – are much closer to the levels of the past five years than they were in the spring, but as the overall death count climbs inexorably the government has to act. Until vaccines are widely available and distributed, it has only one weapon to contain the pandemic: further lockdowns. It is a harsh truth but one that has to be faced.    

So the challenge now will be to make those lockdowns more effective. It may well be that Sir Keir’s call for a national lockdown will be the only way to do so. However, blanket controls over entire regions are arbitrary and threaten to undermine popular support for the policy. Such support is vital. This is not just a question of people being required to obey the law. Rather it is a general acceptance of government policy so that people follow the spirit of the controls, not just the letter. They are, after all, for everyone’s health and safety.