Not sure I agree with this take. I think most people did stick to the COVID rules, or at the very least did their very best to and only breached them without intending too. I can only think of one incident when we knowingly broke the rules - which is when a neighbour's house was robbed and we let them into our house briefly as they were badly shaken up by the experience. I think most people can understand that this is on a difference scale from hosting a party when the rest of the country is only allowed to meet on a 1-1 basis outside. I also think it's entirely fair to hold Johnson - who is setting these rules for the whole country to abide by - to a higher standard than any random member of Joe Public. The likes of Prof Ferguson understand this, and as he has some level of personal integrity, knew he had to resign from his position when he was found to have breached the rules he was part of setting.
As ever, Finkelstein puts it more eloquently than me: "Jacob Rees Mogg says both inaccurately and intellectually offensively that this is a row about cake - this is a row about whether govts are subject to the laws they set, which is a far more profound question than about birthday cake."
The contrast between the leadership demonstrated by The Queen and Boris Johnson is damning too. The Govt offered to bring forward changes to rules around funerals to allow her to grieve for her husband of over 70 years standing alongside her family. She declined their offer as she understands the importance of demonstrating leadership in her actions. Boris and those in number 10, meanwhile, had numerous parties.
As for knife crime, the model set up and run in Glasgow was highly effective, reducing knife crime by quite a high % [I'd have to look up exact figures] after the introduction of the Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) in the mid-2000s. Essentially they looked to move this away from being a 'crime' issue and to look at the issue holistically, across schools, youth clubs, social workers, hospitals, prisons, other community organisations, and of course the police. This approach enabled them to engage with those at risk of committing (or being on the receiving end of) knife crime in a way the police could never do alone. It's about treating knife crime first and foremost as a public health crisis and acting accordingly. This the only solution that can work in London too - and London has set up its on VRU, but it needs a heck of a lot more funding and prioritisation for it to work. [As an aside, this is the type of intervention that 'defund the police' in short-hand for, but that gets deliberately misconstrued, which is an unhelpful tangential argument about nomenclature that takes up more air-time than it should.]
James O Brien listeners vote.
