Many Labour supporters are clinging to Covid restrictions like a child clings on to their favourite toy. You see them in the supermarket, still wearing their facial comfort blankets despite multiple injections and the common knowledge that Covid has mutated into little more than a cold. There is no doubt that with their party in government we would all still face daily restrictions on our lives - one only has to look to Labour-run Wales to know that. Unlike in England, a mask mandate remains in place - in fact it was never lifted after it was imposed in 2020. In London the Labour mayor has also decreed that masks must still be worn on the tube, albeit only his supporters are obeying that diktat.
In the Commons there is a sharp divide over mask wearing. While the overwhelming majority of Tory MPs have discarded them, you will struggle to find a bare face on the Opposition benches. It makes little sense, but Starmer and co (along with the SNP socialists) continue to mask up anyway.
Is it a virtue signal, a quest to maintain fear or a mixture of both?
What's clear is this. They don't actually believe that the mask serves any practical purpose in preventing the spread of anything but fear. How do we know this? Just scroll through the social media posts of any Labour MP and you will find plenty of bare faced photos from beyond the Commons. Who can forget the hundreds of bare faces on display at the Labour conference last autumn? Not a mask in sight.
Only yesterday Keir Starmer himself tweeted a series of photos from a visit to Burnley with Lisa Nandy. The visit was indoors and there were clearly a significant number of people involved. Were they wearing masks? See for yourself...
Labour's mask wearing is political theatre, nothing more.
