Local lockdowns will be a much greater test — all eyes on Leicester

As Londoners consider the wretched fortune of Leicester , singled out by ministerial decree for return to lockdown, we should reflect: there but for the grace of Covid go we. Before the decision to impose a nationwide lockdown, announced by Boris Johnson on March 23, the Government had reviewed specific plans to single out and close down London itself — at that stage, the raging hot spot of coronavirus infection — with perimeter guards patrolling the capital city’s borders. Swiftly and correctly, the idea was ditched. But it was considered.

It is worth remembering this in the weeks ahead. Localised lockdowns — or “smart lockdowns” as they are now, rather optimistically, being called — were always going to be part of the strategic mix. The only question was when, where and how strictly they would be introduced. Populist politics is built on simple, linear narratives: a problem arises and is crushed by strong leadership. But pathogens do not care about linear narratives. They are insidious, cunning and stubborn. Though the first spike of infections has clearly been passed, it is no less clear that the virus is far from done with us.

So Leicester’s misery took the edge off the Prime Minister’s “build, build, build” speech in Dudley yesterday . As Johnson promised a Rooseveltian “New Deal” to kickstart the economic recovery, shopkeepers 55 miles away were closing down once more, schools preparing to send their pupils home, and Leicesterians coming to terms with being excluded from the reopening festivities elsewhere in the nation on Saturday. It is an epidemiological version of Passport To Pimlico, without the humour.

Tough as it is, Matt Hancock’s decision, announced on Monday, was undoubtedly necessary. In the previous week, Leicester had accounted for 10 per cent of all new positive cases in England, while its seven-day infection rate was 135 per 100,000 — three times that of the next-ranked city. The preliminary evidence suggests that Leicester’s notorious textile sweat shops, food factories and schools have been the principal sites of the local spike, though the data is far from complete. The question is not whether the city-specific lockdown is required. The question is whether the frayed relationship between national and local government is up to the task of managing the granular challenges ahead. The response structure that Hancock described to his fellow MPs on Monday — gold, silver and bronze level meetings, depending upon severity — epitomised the ultra-centralisation of the British unitary state.

Local officials in Leicester have made no secret of their frustrations over the flow of data from Whitehall. In private, meanwhile, ministers and civil servants have been tearing their hair out over the alleged sluggishness of Sir Peter Soulsby, the mayor of Leicester, and his colleagues on the city council.

As a test case in how local lockdowns will work the omens thus far are not promising. It is encouraging that Leicester’s employers have been permitted to re-furlough their staff, as bespoke economic measures of this sort will be essential as the battle becomes more geographically targeted.

The greater question is how quickly and effectively a local infrastructure can be put in place to pinpoint the problem and speed Leicester’s exit from lockdown as quickly as possible. In this respect, the delay to the long-promised contact tracing app — the best prospect for identifying who needs to be quarantined — is a serious problem.

More to the point, geographically specific lockdowns will be a much greater test of the social contract than the national version ever was. What Johnson announced on March 23 had the merit of simplicity and uniformity: stay at home, all of you. But local quarantines will, by definition, be selective and sow resentment: why this town and not that one? Why this housing development and not another? Clifford Stott, professor of social psychology at Keele University, warned this week that such tensions, especially in deprived areas, could “provoke civil disorder”.

We must hope fervently that this does not come to pass — and it need not. But it would be wildly premature to imagine that we are now coasting towards the final stretch of this terrible national experience. In many ways, the next phase — transitional, stop-go, confusing — will be the hardest and the most frustrating. All eyes on Leicester.