Jeff King: The Lockdown is Lawful
01 Apr 2020 Leave a comment
The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020 (Reg 6) and the Health Protection (Coronavirus Restrictions) (Wales) Regulations 2020 (Reg 8) both provide in identical wording that ‘During the emergency period, no person may leave the place where they are living without reasonable excuse.’ Both also enumerate thirteen exceptions (‘reasonable excuses’) to the rule. These are the restrictions widely referred to as the ‘lockdown.’ There is a question at the moment about whether they are so invasive as to be unlawful. This two-part post briefly reviews the legal basis for the confinement. I argue that the lockdown is lawful.
The Statutory Framework
The recently adopted Coronavirus Act 2020 does not confer new powers on UK and Welsh ministers to impose a lockdown on the people of England and Wales. It does confer such powers on Northern Ireland (specifically, the Northern Ireland Department of Health) in Schedule…
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Anti-science in American politics: two must-read articles
30 Mar 2020 Leave a comment
I don’t often tell readers about articles that they simply have to read, but this pair qualifies. Together they’re not terribly short (about 7000 words in toto), but I like to think that my readers have decent attention spans—and the interest in science and politics that makes this Scientific American essay, “Antiscience beliefs jeopardize U.S. democracy” by Shawn Lawrence Otto, mandatory reading. When you finish Otto’s piece, go read the related Sci. Am. piece: “Science in an election year,” which summarizes and rates the Presidential candidates’ stands on 14 critical scientific and technological issues.
In fact, go read them now before you read any other posts on this website.
Otto’s piece not only summarizes the current anti-science strain in American politics, but traces its origins back to the time of the Founding Fathers, who were clearly pro-science (Jefferson and Franklin come to mind). From those…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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