Tolerance will be needed as lockdown restrictions ease

Shops, salons, restaurants, pubs and gyms reopen this week, and the government has wasted no time in issuing gentle warnings to people to respect social distancing and to generally keep order. Such warnings have the convenient side effect of absolving the government of responsibility for when such order is, inevitably, not kept.

There is no easy answer to this particular problem. To take one example, there are many parents of young children desperate to replace their toddlers’ shoes, a task that is particularly difficult to do online. Children’s shoe shops have been considered non-essential, yet few people would consider a child having shoes to be anything less than essential.

As such, there may very well be large numbers of parents who will not be dissuaded by a crowd of any size. This is not some moral failure on their part and it is highly likely that said shoe shops will be very busy.

There is, of course, no rule that says a person must not go to a shop, or a gym, or wherever. Quite the opposite, in fact. So nobody, not one individual person in a crowded shop, is breaking any rule.

Reopening shopping centres overnight but telling people to go easy is arguably a dereliction of duty by the government, which now expects people, en masse, to behave in a way that is beyond the individual agency of any of them. In fairness, there are no obvious alternatives. Calling for calm is the best the government can do.

As individuals, though, we have a part to play. Our tolerance might be tested by the behaviour of others in the coming days and weeks, but we must do our best to maintain civility. Two weeks ago, when rules were finally relaxed, allowing people to meet more than one friend outside for the first time in months, some unseasonably hot weather arrived and public parks, being the only place in which to gather, became overrun. The next day, a certain amount of devastation left behind was seized upon and used to shame those involved. This is unhelpful.

It should, of course, be easy for people to take their rubbish home with them. But every new year’s morning, 85 tonnes of it still has to be cleared away from the streets around Big Ben. At the same time, tens of thousands of sparkling wine bottles are removed from the Royal Mile in Edinburgh. Such scenes do not, as a general rule, prompt mass public outrage. The people involved do not tend to be regarded as lacking basic consideration for others.

The public will not, in short, be able to follow the instructions they have been given. It is not possible. One thing we might all be able to do, however, is think a bit harder, or be a bit more understanding, and a bit slower to point the finger of judgement at the inevitable.