I made my weeky visit to Tesco today. All seems pretty much as usual, except that flour supplies are now almost back to normal. Hardly anyone is wearing masks, but at least people are being respectful of distance.

Today was a significant day in the history of the UK’s parliament. During the past few weeks of Lockdown, Parliament has been operating electronically. MPs have been able to debate and vote online. By all reports I have seen, this has worked very well. However, the government, in the person of Jacob Rees-Smaug, has seen fit to insist on a return to in-person meetings. This has had some very negative effects.

To start with, a number of MPs have been completely disenfranchised. That’s because they are elderly, disabled, vulnerable to infection, or caring for someone who is vulnerable. They won’t be able to attend or vote, and the people who voted them into Parliament are effectively disenfranchised too.

Secondly, the new voting system that has been devised to preserve social distancing takes around 45 minutes for a single vote (with MPs having to queue for most of that time, outside in the hot sun). That futher disenfranchises MPs whose health is not good, and it makes the act of voting such a nuissance that MPs will want to avoid it where possible. It also takes time out of the Parliamentary schedule, which makes it harder to scruitinise what the government is up to.

Many Tory MPs are reportedly furious about having to go through this rigmarole, but most of them voted for it anyway because it was only their personal inconvenience that mattered to them.

Practically speaking, of course, an 80 seat majority means that the government can do pretty much what it wants anyway. Not having a functional parliament simply makes it harder for the opposition to find out what they are up to and to challenge it. But we are well on the way to being a country where the Prime Minister, Mr. Cummings, can rule by dictat.

Still, at least it is all very British and civilised. It could be worse, we could have armed Trumpist militias terrorising the populous like they have in the USA.