The government should be wary of diminishing returns as lockdown drags on – it’s time for a clear exit plan

Have you become a lockdown liar? As the weeks roll on and on and on, the temptation to skirt around the edges of the rules gets ever greater.

If you’ve got the mobile number of a decent hairdresser, you might have experienced the temptation to make an illegal request. Maybe you’ll offer to pay in cash for an at-home trim or subtle colour job. It’s so tempting, and who would know? As for body maintenance (anything to lift our spirits) – I had a pedicure booked for this week (the appointment was made before the current lockdown was announced), but got a message telling me that it would have to turn into a “medical” procedure to be legal.

There would be no varnish (and it would be more expensive)… but isn’t that just a business being “creative” to survive? What about a massage with the curtains drawn?

With gyms closed, how do the body-conscious and well-heeled keep up with their daily workouts? I’ve started walking at 7.45am – at that hour, no matter what the weather, I see men and women sparring with their boxing trainers or lifting weights in the park with someone barking instructions.

Once, our lies were about sex, now we’re fibbing about sneaky suppers, toenails and body waxing. About personal trainers, second homes, and trips to exercise in bigger green spaces than the local park. You don’t need the bare-faced chutzpah of Rita Ora to skirt around the lockdown rules – more people are quietly, unobtrusively doing it than we’ll ever know.

In the old pre-Covid days (remember them, when you could go out and socialise with different people every night and even in the same evening) we told big lies about whether we’d been unfaithful and white lies about whether sex with our long-term partners was satisfactory. We lied to employers about our drug consumption or why we missed work last Monday. Now we don’t even bother to lie about our drinking or our weight gain, they’ve become a lockdown badge of honour.

Forced to stay in every night, we lie about who is in our bubble for a kitchen supper and why we are driving along a motorway on a Monday (to shop?). As for travel, we tell white lies about the reason why we might be on a beach or online booking a flight to Dubai/Paris/Barbados – the current rules dictate that these actions will be in the name of essential “work”. Zoom meeting? Get a fancy fake background and you could be anywhere.

Lockdown is a law of diminishing returns. Winter weather means that offering us a slow release from captivity via outdoor events and al fresco dining and drinking is not that appealing or practical. What we crave is to sit in a theatre, at a concert, around a cafe table or in a pub with pals. Not to cluster under a dripping tree or squat on a damp wooden bench.

If lockdown is to continue (as some experts have suggested) until infections drop below a 1,000 a day we could be stuck in this hell until well into April. And the new quarantine arrangements won’t do anything more than nibble at the edges of the main problem facing Boris Johnson. That problem isn’t just a deadly virus, it is fatigue, followed by boredom and depression.

The government has issued more laws, guidelines and social restrictions than any since the last war. That was the easy part. Now, it needs an exit strategy, one that people who are starting to find it easier to lie will adhere to. The signs aren’t good. The quarantine rules are full of loopholes. Yes, a ridiculous £10,000 fine has been introduced for flouting the regulations. But will it ever be imposed?

Scotland’s attempts to become a “fortress” with even stricter rules than England have come to naught. Having decreed that anyone entering Scotland from outside the Common Travel Area (and Ireland) must quarantine in a pre-booked hotel for 10 days, the government pre-booked 1,300 rooms in 6 hotels in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen. It paid for 822 rooms in advance, at a considerable cost to the Treasury (ie the taxpayer).

On Monday, 65 people were booked on a direct flight from Istanbul to Scotland, but only 4 travelled. Faced with a bill of £1,750, many will likely have re-booked a direct flight to London for around £700 and made their journey north of the border on public transport or by car. And then? Who will be checking up on their whereabouts and testing them? Last Tuesday, just 14 people were in a Scottish hotel in quarantine.

Travellers arriving in the UK from the 33 red list countries (Spain and the USA are soon expected be added to the ever-growing number of “at risk” countries) now have to go to quarantine hotels. But travellers from other destinations can isolate for 10 days at home or a private address, which they must put on a locator form. They will be tested twice, but will they be monitored daily?

Of course not. You can’t impose 10-year jail sentences if the whole system is leaky and allows white lies and even quite dark grey lies.

Throughout the pandemic, Boris Johnson and his ministers have been very good at dishing out rules and legislation (along with fines and the threat of imprisonment) which limit our personal liberty and compromise our privacy. All done in the name of saving the NHS and protecting the vulnerable. The government expected the police to enforce this raft of new restrictions, without giving them any more resources and even clear-cut guidance.

Now the time has come to row back and allow us to resume our lives without having to resort to silly lies and subterfuge.