Majority of Brits “Worried” About Ending of Lockdown Restrictions, According to New Survey
Recent reports on the level of fear over Covid in Britain significantly understate how anxious people feel about returning to life as normal, according to new polling. Over 60% of respondents in a new poll for the Independent say they are worried about the ending of social distancing and mask-wearing. This is far higher than the level reported in recent polling from Ipsos MORI (12% and 21% said they were “not looking forward” to abandoning social distancing and giving up face masks respectively). Perhaps far more are suffering from “Covid Anxiety Syndrome” than we previously thought. The Independent has more.
A large majority of Britons are “worried” about Boris Johnson’s plan to remove all remaining coronavirus rules this month…
Some 65% of people said they are worried about scrapping the “one metre plus” rule, which requires venues to use screens, or seat people facing away from each other, and prevents ordering at bars with table service required instead.
There is similar concern about removing the need to wear masks in many settings (63%) and about allowing unlimited numbers into concerts, theatres and sports stadiums (60%).
Reopening nightclubs alarms 58% of people who responded to pollsters Savanta ComRes, with 49% nervous about scrapping limits on the size of weddings and funerals…
The poll of 2,180 people conducted between May 28th and 30th revealed the Government does not have majority backing for lifting all restrictions, with only 45% in favour and 42% against.
Crucially, when confronted with specific curbs to be removed, a much smaller minority is “not worried” about ending social distancing (33%), mask-wearing (35%) and attendance limits at events (37%).
The greatest public concern centres on lifting all foreign travel restrictions – with 69% of people fearful.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: “Shame on those peddling fear,” says Co-Founder of Time for Recovery Alan Miller.
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Again the MSM story is just swallowed whole with no scepticism about how the survey was rigged. Because they’re all rigged.
I think you’re sucking a comfort blanket.
This poll strikes me as credible: the Fear engendered is not going to just dissipate when so much effort is being put into sustaining it. The blanket of news, from which most people get their information, remains the same in tone.
I agree
It does mean 40% are not worried which is a decent number given the propaganda
They publish these surveys when they have the ‘answer’ that they ‘want’. If they are in any genuine which I doubt they will simply poll a group likely to provide the answer they need.
They are obviously going to extend the lockdown – we all know that. And this survey along with others like them gives them the justification.
In a nutshell.
Yeah. It’s a poll for the hilariously named Independent. Obviously it will be the Indie’s party line.
Never read it.
The Windy is the true name but nobody was buying it anyway so is now only available online.
I think most sensible people out there are a lot more clued-up than some people think – I mean, on the one hand there are those who have made up their mind that the dangers are over and there is no reason to carry on with restrictions that are causing more harm than good (this is where I am) and then on the other hand there are those who think that the danger is endless and we should all remain locked up permanently, wear masks always and take whatever jabs are offered, I suspect these people lived in constant fear of everything even before the pandemic happened – but then there are those who haven’t made up there mind yet one way or the other – they are the ones the government must convince are in danger if they lift the restrictions and I suspect this government has cried wolf once too often – I think the undeciders are no longer as easily frightened by the msm headlines as they once were and are steadily moving into the ‘end all restrictions and lets get on with living our lives again’ camp – I really do think this government is in… Read more »
“most SENSIBLE people are clued up…” Unfortunately it’s the ones who aren’t sensible that are in the ascendant. When I walk into the town centre (Dereham, Norfolk) I see that easily 8 out of 10 people are wearing masks in the open air. Overwhelmingly not sensible.
I think comfortable places in the south of England like Norfolk and points south are populated by many of these querulous souls. Go north and there’s a lot more independence of thought until you get to the border. In Scotland so many are employed directly or circuitously by the state – and are in no position to push back.
I am Spartacus too
But it isn’t credible. As with all polls, the devil is in the detail. Just how concerned are these people? Are they concerned enough to influence their behaviour? Are they on the one hand concerned, but on the other hand part of the significant number of people who were secretly inviting others into their homes before 17 May? What is their age? What difference would opening a nightclub be to a concerned 80 year old? Asking whether someone is concerned provides no information of actual use. I’m concerned that sea levels may rise by a few feet in 100 years but I still eat beef and I’m happy to travel by air however many times in a year.
I’m yet to meet anyone who is scared of Covid, and this sad, scared narrative just doesn’t fit with what we see every day where hordes of people are now returning to normal life, and the busy scenes in places like Soho.
Martin Kulldorff at Spiked is superb.
“ Ultimately, lockdowns protected young low-risk professionals working from home – journalists, lawyers, scientists, and bankers – on the backs of children, the working class and the poor. In the US, lockdowns are the biggest assault on workers since segregation and the Vietnam War. Except for war, there are few government actions during my life that have imposed more suffering and injustice on such a large scale.”
https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/06/04/why-i-spoke-out-against-lockdowns/?utm_source=spiked+long-reads&utm_campaign=dc324bcef8-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2021_06_05_09_49&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_9dfa8b2a91-dc324bcef8-99423974
Yes, I trust him. Hopefully his writing this might make others speak out
I doubt it. Kulldorff and others have spoken out throughout all this but have got nowhere.
It has not helped that none of the Great Barrington Declaration folk are will to use the “L” word.
The public won’t be moved by one lot of hand-wringers arguing with another lot of hand-wringers.
What needs to be said is to point out that government & their advisors everywhere have been LYING about everything.
That’s a new calculus for the public. To decide if a politician is telling the truth, or a group of independent scientists & doctors.
I’ve begged some of them to pick a narrative point and dismantle it, followed by the conclusion that those advising governments are smart & can only maintain the fear by lying.
Britain needs nothing more than the truth to set them free. It’d have to be told repeatedly.
Lockdown is a cruel policy and we are also a cruel cowardly society. We have sacrificed some people to save others through lockdown when there was no need for a lockdown at all. We should have had focused protection of the vulnerable and let everyone else get on with their lives with sensible precautions
Not sure we’ve actually saved anyone
Yeah you are right, I should have said attempted to save some people
Or worse, pretended to attempt. I suspect at least some near the levers of power knew it was futile, if not right at the start then pretty soon after. A lot of the response has been political theatre, based on what looked good or could be spun well rather than any real belief of efficacy.
“…lockdowns the biggest assault on workers since segregation and the Vietnam War…”
Bringing on a new form of segregation and war.
This is absolutely true. It’s allowed a greater concentration of money and power in the very few than could ever have been conceived. And the Left are like turkeys voting for Christmas. Utterly moronic.
Many thanks for the link, an excellent piece
Compare and contrast this kind of robust writing with the vapid bleating of Bella Wallersteiner’s article.
Pretty obvious this ‘poll’ is a sham, just like all the rest of them.
Remember, the law is an ass and full of loopholes! Do what you want!
A survey of readers of the Independent! Mhmm would that have covered May living in poor inner city areas?
many not May
Well it’s no wonder people are scared. If you have spent the last 14 months doing getting your news from the main stream media then you are will be under the impression we are dealing with the most deadly disease know to man. You would think that it has a 100% fatality rate and more then half the worlds population have died of it.
The country is really mentally ill.
Many countries are really mentally ill, hope you don’t mind the change.
The western world.
Yeah, yeah: a survey for the Independent – so you just KNOW there is no bias over that!
The Independent; a rag that now prints incitement of hatred towards anyone who does not want or can not have the gene therapy.
Actually I did my own survey of 2,000 people on the streets of London last Saturday and it showed that 100% were not fearful about the ending of restrictions and wanted the end date brought forward.
Given that the Independent survey would have been just as rigged as mine, the fact that 45% responded in favour of ending all restrictions is actually very encouraging.
I have googled the actual poll but can’t find it published in the ComRes website. So I have to rely on the Independent article, with its undefined terms”Worried”, fearful, alarmed, nervous.
These words lose their meaning in the MSM environment and are just politicised.
Looked too. Not even an update on their Twitter.
Quite simple – anyone who is “nervous” about night clubs opening, wedding numbers increasing etc don’t have to attend.
If someone wants they can lock themselves away to rot forever more.
…but that doesn’t mean they have any right to dictate who the rest of the country lives.
Their paranoia should be a personal thing and not affect anyone else trying to live.
Absolutely. They need to lock themselves away bleaching their shopping and quarantining their mail to their heart’s content. Then hopefully the lack of vitamin D and exercise (other than scrubbing shopping) will lead to a fall and slow death. Praise the Lord though, the death won’t be from Covid so that’ll be fine.
I am sure Hancock will find a way to put their deaths down as Covid deaths
Exactly. In the same way that because I want to go out and get on with life I won’t force other people to do so. Each to his own but don’t try to force your way of life on others
Stop calling the PM Boris
He’s not our mate and that’s not his real name. It’s a stage name
Alexander de piffle Johnson.
An “exclusive survey.” Neurotic Sheeple Only, please.
Ah yes Ipsos MORI. That ‘independant’ market research company which received a nice juicy grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation last October and whose chief executive Ben Page appeared at the world Economic Forum in Davos to discuss issues surrounding vaccine confidence.
https://principia-scientific.com/ipsos-mori-gates-foundation-world-economic-forum-connected/
Entirely believable. The masses have succumbed to fear. A vaccine doesn’t end that. Courage is the only thing that beats fear.
Opinion pollsters often asked loaded questions to get the answers their clients want. This survey was done for the Independent, so you can take the results with a pinch of salt. If my experience is anything to go by, most people now want to see an end to the restriction. No doubt there are a few timid little rabbits who want to hide away from life, and their fear is being fuelled by certain newspapers, including the Starmeresque Sunday Times, which is now worried there will be a huge surge in gang crime when all restrictions are lifted. But these papers are fighting a losing battle, and I do believe they will be seen as having been unduly alarmist in months to come.
As George Carlin once said: Think how dumb the average person is, then realise half the population are dumber than that!
Worried?
Oh, diddums.
They can hide under the bed till they rot.
And the unworried will have some space to get on with living.
We have been subjected to “don’t kill granny” (whose now vaccinated and as safe as she will ever be) for 15 months. How many of the 60% answer because they don’t want to be in the granny killer category? How many a week after we are finally free will begin to live life as normal again?
This must end. Masks have never been effective virus controls. No survey finds more than a small marginal benefit (which is accomplished by social pressure for the sick to stay at home. The 1 meter rule is not only ridiculous (airflow not distance matters), but strangles both hospitality and museums by removing the “drop in” factor. It must end. If not now (or 21/6) when? When will be “safe”?
SAFE MEANS NEVER
I wonder how many grannies lockdowns are supposed to have saved have died now anyway of other causes. It’s very sad but old grannies tend to die, it’s nature taking it’s course and will happen to us all one day.
Missing the point.
This has never been about ‘flu only about the New World Order.
My ‘team’ has two or three general catch up meetings each week. We’ve all been WFH since mid-March 2020. You can guarantee at least half the time will be taken up with chatter about vaccines or how terrified some of them are to go into Primark. One or two will proudly reveal they haven’t physically left the house for X days and don’t really want to ever again. Some don’t want to go back into the office because the workspaces are open plan and they worry that when they go into some of the smaller meeting rooms they won’t be able to stay 2m away from other attendees. I’ve even heard critical comments about people sitting too close on benches out in the fresh air. I’m public sector – if others who work in this sector think the same way as my colleagues, the chance of people being able to go back to normal at the local level isn’t great even if national restrictions change! Plus it means no consistency across the country. Fun times.
Your lot sound pretty far gone. My lot are more of a mixed bag, though most do love to talk about how they’ve been jabbed. I just mute the chat for a few minutes and switch it back on when they start talking about work stuff again.
I can’t believe there are people who are still reluctant to leave the house. I can’t stand staying in and am making the most of getting out now to see friends, go to pubs, bars, restaurants and shops etc. I want to make the most of it while I can before the fat dictator locks us all up again for God knows who long the next lockdown will be……….. and there will another lockdown
That’s the public sector for you. It only consumes what the private sector produces so is happy to stay WFH on full salaries with zero concern about productivity. Fun times? It’s fun Jim, but not as we know it
The Civil Service is full of brown-nosing thickos. The majority of the rest are idiotic, thick as F..k brown- nosing intellectual sub-normals.
I hold my fellow citizen in low regard after the Covid scare. Who would have thought that so many could be brainwashed like this?
It’d frightening really that people can be so easily controlled. Today it’s the Covid nonsense but in a few years who knows………
No, not a large majority of Britons, a large majority of people who read the independent who are about 98% more likely to be absolute wetwipes anyway.
Willing to bet that the full 58% of those “alarmed” by the reopening of nightclubs are all people that don’t go to nightclubs anyway
Oh ffs so why don’t the terrified just STAY THE FUCK AT HOME as they were imploring the rest of us to do for so long. Literally, they need to fuck off and preferably die in a hole.
Just look at that picture of the puppet criminals at G7. Eerily reminiscent of something you would see in a movie like Hunger Games.
Nothing to stop worried people wearing triple masks and cowering five metres from anyone else until they die, if they wish.
What’s the point in worrying about something that will probably never happen?
It just goes to show how easy it is to brainwash people in this country who are incapable of thinking for themselves and absorb all of the lies promulgated by the government and the MSM.
I don’t believe anything that the Government and its chief apologist, the BBC, say.
A plague on both their houses.