Who knows? The Chief Medical Officers advised it, which Michael Gove admits. But did the government do it? It’s difficult to tell whether the wishes of the CMOs have been met (the graph in the article here says only that it means “Strictest level of social distancing measures and restrictions“, which is not terribly clear). Gove was evasive, saying that the government had “no alternative other than to take every step that we possibly could” – which might range from, well, absolutely everything to only what they fancied doing in view of their obsession with getting the economy moving (they say restrictions are bad for the economy but often fail to mention that without them the economy, and everything else, would collapse). The point of the tier system, I suppose, is to try to solve this problem by a mixture of light restrictions here and heavier ones there, moving from one to another as the rates of infection change and (as we now know) the virus mutates. But this ensures that we are always behind the virus, never in front.
There seems now to be some acknowledgement of this and it looks as if the tiers have been temporarily suspended in favour of an across-the-board lockdown, similar to the first one. That first one worked, even though it was imposed later than it should have been: infection levels fell. But it was lifted too early, and infection levels rose after we were all advised it was OK to barbecue and dance in each other’s gardens and use each other’s bathrooms.
When will this new lockdown start to be lifted? Johnson thinks mid-February, when, he says, 12.2 million of the most vulnerable people will have received their vaccinations and we will have entered “the last phase of the struggle”.
I always worry when Johnson slips into his “Winston-at-war” mode (Churchill: “This is not the end, nor even the beginning of the end, but it is the end of the beginning”). It’s misleading to think of the pandemic as an enemy in a war. A scientist interviewed on Channel 4 News the other day was asked by the interviewer whether the virus was “trying to beat the vaccine”. She replied that we should get away from the idea that the virus is trying to do anything: it is simply mutating, as viruses do.
Gove thinks mid-March is more likely, when the effect of the vaccine will start to be evaluated. Let’s hope one of them is right, even if it’s only by accident. Johnson isn’t always right. On Sunday he said there was “no doubt in my mind” that the schools were safe. Today they’re shut. Still, hope springs eternal …
Bob Mouncer's blog 
Thank you Bob for writing so clearly and describing this horrendous proposal by Priti Patel. I read about this recently. Coupled with the crime and sentencing bill we are entering a ghastly dictatorial style state. You have given us the means to argue against this bill and we join in all those who support humanity rather than this desire to shrink and put up yet more fences and barriers.