Over-zealous police put the entire lockdown strategy at risk

Coronavirus is bringing out the best in some public services and the worst in others. I’m still being a snob about clapping for the NHS — it’s not British and you can’t make me think it is — but there’s no doubt health service staff have put in an absolute shift and their unhesitating dart in the direction of danger has been admirable. The police, though, are a more complicated story. The vast majority are doing a fine job under tense circumstances. They are an unarmed constabulary enforcing an open-ended lockdown in the middle of a pandemic.

Still, there have been a number of incidents now that risk chipping away at public support for the lockdown and the police themselves. South Yorkshire Police had to apologise after a ‘well-intentioned but ill-informed’ bobby scolded a family for being in their own front garden, even though that is permitted under the government’s social distancing rules.