Snow again and drones in the Peak District

I can't understand it. People going on about the use of police drones in the Peak District National Park to make a point. Yes it was not a very well made point. But the park was super busy last weekend when no one took a blind bit of notice.  #stayathome is not just for feckless proles. It's for everyone. Sure - walk from your house, exercise. But don't get in the car and drive elsewhere to walk.

It's not a good look using drones to target people. But hey, Orwellian or not these are the new rules and they have a deadly purpose.

There were another 712 deaths in Italy in the last 24 hours. If the UK wants to avoid these horrific numbers and the charnel house scenes of army lorries carting the dead to crematoriams it had better wake up.

The learning curve for living with a pandemic is extremely steep and extremely rapid. And when the wave is towering over you you'll not gainsay it.

In Italy in the last two week the police have made 2 million - MILLION - checks on people movement and fined 100,000 violations. I've had it said to me that the model of British policing is different - consensus and all that.

But the Italians I would bet hold the police in much less high regard than your average Brit. But they have realised - from the sheer horror of what is going on - that this is a necessity. Unpleasant, draconian (remember Draco?), Orwellian even. But as someone said of Bergamo and Brescia: We are fighting for the lives of a generation who are being massacred.

In the IIWW did people moan on about about being allowed to drive to the Peak District to walk their dogs and enjoy the spring flowers? I bloody hope not. This isn't the move of a 'communist state' as someone else said on Twiteer.

It is the move of a police force pared to the bone and charged with coming up with a plan for enforcing the lockdown for self-preservation. For the protection of lives and health workers and other essential workers.

There are double the police in Italy per 100k of population than in the UK. That is repeated across much of Europe. The thin blue in England and Wales is very thin indeed and being decimated by illness and self isolation in the Met. 

Everyday I say to myself. You mustn't get so angry. And then I see mistakes being made and myopias being reproduced that seem unbelievable. But that learning curve out of comfortable normality is huge and steep and very condensed in time. What seemed impossible two days ago becomes an accepted way of being. Because the alternative is unspeakable.

My news: my mum had a heart attack, was taken to the JR in Oxford, was back at the home the next day on aspirin and statins. Another resident was not so lucky. She was taken in and died last Monday. She had the virus. The home is in lockdown. My Mum is in isolation. The staff are hoping that test kits will arrive. this is the new normal.

And people are worrying about drones in the Peak District.