Freedom To The (Wealthy) People

04/12/2020

Wolfie Smith fought for 'power to the people', but he didn't mean this should freedom be for the business elite

I cannot be the only one who is absolutely staggered by the tweet sent by the MP Grant Shapps yesterday, saying that 'high-value business travellers' will be exempted from the quarantine requirements that will continue to apply to 'ordinary people'.

I'm pretty sure that the 'high-value business travellers' can afford the IT equipment (and subscriptions) to enable high quality Zoom meetings, so their need to travel overseas for business meetings is massively reduced. This pandemic has already shown us that an awful lot of business travel is unnecessary.

If a 'high-value businessperson' does need to physically travel overseas for meetings, they have no greater need to avoid self-isolation than anyone else. The Prime Minister has worked whilst isolating, as have many, many others.

There are lots of reasons why this is an appalling decision, which has been communicated badly. Twitter gives us some examples:

This really is a policy that the government should drop immediately.