The rise of domestic violence during lockdown

“With reports of a 7% rise in domestic abuse cases during the first lockdown this year, it is clear that the hysteria-fuelled reaction to Covid-19 is eroding the fabric of British life.”

With reports of a 7% rise in domestic abuse cases during the first lockdown this year, it is clear that the hysteria-fuelled reaction to Covid-19 is eroding the fabric of British life. 

Between April and June, police recorded 259,324 crimes flagged as related to domestic abuse, representing a rise of 7% on this time last year and an 18% rise on the same time in 2018. The ONS has been careful not to ascribe the rise to the pandemic, or to lockdown, but domestic abuse crimes fell as an overall share of all crimes recorded, as the lockdown eased. In the months April, May and June, domestic violence accounted for a fifth of all crimes recorded. 

Jay Bhattacharya, one of the scientists who co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration, has said that the number one goal of public health is to find solutions to health problems ‘in the round,’ so that no one value or metric of wellbeing is not sacrificed in the cost of another. These figures demonstrate that lockdowns come at a dangerously high price. It is not just mental health and economic livelihoods that are impacted, but also the physical wellbeing of the most vulnerable members of society. 

Civic life depends on a finely wrought web of competing interests and values. Family, work, leisure and entertainment and political engagement all serve to balance each other in the multitude of forces that help to shape human flourishing. Health is another value in this mix. 

Any criticism of lockdowns is still being treated as a heartless, selfish attempt to minimise the threat of the virus and to prize the economy over lives. In truth, scepticism about lockdowns emerges from broad and complex view of what preserves social harmony and wellbeing. Telling people that it is their social duty to sacrifice their livelihoods, their family relationships, their mental wellbeing and civic liberty in order to supress coronavirus, is one thing. It is a yet more damaging imposition to shout them down for worrying about the enormous costs they are being asked to pay. 

One can’t help suspecting that the ongoing government-sponsored gaslighting of British citizens have had to endure over the last year is at least partly a cause in the sharp uptick in domestic violence. 

The ‘lockdown or doom’ framing of the problem, favoured by irresponsible and dangerous demagogues like Piers Morgan and his rent-a-quote, misery-mongering scientist-guests on GMB, is helping to derange society, and it is putting enormous strain on our national psyche. The current ‘Christmas could be a massacre’ narrative is just another such assault on our collective sanity by an elite whose wealth and position protects them from the costs of their own preferred policies. 

We need Christmas not because we want to indulge ourselves at the expense of the vulnerable who will die of Covid. It is not about boozing it up as the NHS buckles and thousands of old people are forgotten. The fact is, like Remembrance Day and Easter (which were both cancelled this year due to lockdowns), we need our civic rituals. Just as our biological immune system is strengthened through healthy activity, our psychological immune systems get critical sustenance from family, joy and meaningful experiences shared with our communities. 

The panic-industrial complex know all of this. They realise that the more they rob us of our rituals and common social practices, the more power they distil for themselves, whether it is political power of psychological power. For our sinister elite, a rise in domestic violence is no doubt a good sign. Everything is going to plan.