Further coronavirus restrictions for Lancashire: yet more misery for our young people.

So the nonsense continues. The good people of Lancashire - my home county – will, from today, have to endure yet more restrictions on their lives.

The latest diktats

The Stasi officers, Johnson and Hancock, abetted by the Government’s groupthink scientists and public health zealots, have determined that further constraints on our freedoms will be imposed:

1. We ‘must not’ socialise with people outside our households in homes or gardens;

2. Pubs and restaurants ‘must’ only operate table service;

3. Pubs, restaurants and all other leisure facilities ‘must’ close by 10.00 pm.

In addition, we are ‘advised’ to only use public transport – muzzled, of course – for essential journeys, and not to attend amateur sporting events.

The dubious reason for further restrictions

It will have taken many hours of deliberation, involving highly-paid public health officials huddled around tables in their ivory towers, to come up with this latest batch of specific curtailments on our core freedoms. Meanwhile the country burns around them, with livelihoods destroyed and escalating collateral deaths from cancer and other non-COVID illnesses.

And the reason for this latest action? A massive increase in the number of tests conducted (with a wildly inaccurate PCR test that will churn out false positives in up to 80% of instances) has – unsurprisingly - led to a rise in the apparent rate of coronavirus infections in Lancashire. There has been no notable upticks in hospital admissions or deaths.

The impact on young people

As a retired person, I’m at an age when early pub closures will not hugely impact on my social calendar; my wining and dining tend to be in the daytime and I’m usually at home nodding off in my chair in front of the TV by 10pm. And as I refuse to wear a mask, I’ve already curtailed my use of public transport. But I have huge sympathy and concern for younger people who have already been disproportionately penalised by the Government’s ludicrous coronavirus policies.

Despite the under-35s being as good as bullet proof to the risk of dying from COVID-19, they are the age demographic who have suffered the most. Millions of our children have sacrificed a chunk of their basic education, and vital peer-to-peer interactions, due to school closures. They have endured the disappointment of their academic test results being thrown into disarray, and those progressing to university are finding austere environments more fitting of a prison than the vibrant hubs of learning and socialising that they are meant to be.

And where can young people find the fun and thrills that constitute an essential part of this phase of the life cycle? With social interaction now deemed a sin to be actively avoided, night clubs shut, and communal working environments dwindling in number, where is a young adult going to find a partner? Johnson, Hancock and the Government’s scientists have sucked all the joy out of fledgling lives more effectively than Dementors in a Harry Potter movie. If this relentless slide into a totalitarian state is to be halted, our youngsters need to scream their disapproval and reject these impositions; mass non-compliance seems the only solution.