Government wants you to grass on your neighbours breaking ‘rule of six’

Am no a grass

The government's "rule of six" comes into effect today, limiting the size of groups meeting inside or outside to six. Those found guilty of breaking these rules could face fines up to £3,200, but how - you may ask - can the government possibly enforce such measures? The answer, it appears, is that they want to turn us into a nation of grasses. Speaking on BBC Radio 4 today, policing minister Kit Malthouse (great name to be fair) said that one obvious means to detect rule breaking was for neighbours to call the police's non-emergency number. https://twitter.com/10DowningStreet/status/1305453256949329921?s=20 "We are in discussions about what reporting mechanisms there might be but there is obviously the non-emergency number that people can ring and report issues they wish to," he told the Today programme. "Certainly during the initial stage of lockdown, we did see a surge in those reports coming through to the police. "If people are concerned, if they do think there is contravention then that option is open to them." When asked whether he was encouraging people to report neighbours if they had seven or more people in their garden, Malthouse said: "It is open to neighbours to do exactly that through the non-emergency number and if they are concerned and they do see that kind of thing, then absolutely they should think about it." Now, theoretically this seems fine. The number of daily Covid-19 cases in the United Kingdom is rising at a dangerous rate and, no matter what we think of the government's shambolic handling of this crisis, we need to remain safe and simply not take the piss. Will encouraging people to grass on their neighbours lead to a reduction in cases, or will it simply lead to the non-emergency number being inundated by snide neighbours looking to get revenge on one another? I guess we'll find out.