Hello, it's Friday the 9th of July and I'm delighted today to be joined on

copy-out shops by two special guests, Ben Page of Ipsos Moray and Francis Elliott,

Director of Advocacia Engaged Britain and a journalist for The I and the Times and the biographer of David Cameron.

Now, Ben, you've done some astonishing polling suggesting that a large chunk of the public

would quite like some of these lockdown restrictions to go on regardless of COVID-19.

Can you talk us through this?

Sure. So what we've done is ask people what they want extended for a month after the potential

unlocking on July the 19th, what they want kept until COVID is finally under control globally.

And then partly slightly cheekily what they thought might be needed permanently, regardless

of the risk from COVID-19. And what it shows,

of course, is that there's a substantial minority of people who think that masks should be retained,

as they are in some Asian countries, virtually all the time, in shops and on public transport.

And perhaps most strikingly, one in five people saying that they favour having a curfew against leaving home after 10 o'clock at night without a good reason.

I think as the person who's done this poll, I think the first thing that's important to remember is that in terms of the extent what people want extended for a month after July 19thth just reflects the fact that in terms of

masks on public transport for example that's entirely consistent with other

polling and I think it's a reflection of the fact that by some margin throughout the

pandemic the public has been more cautious than the government and generally by a

margin of about three to one, they've tended to

believe that government measures introduced. All of the restrictions have been not strict enough,

rather than too strict. Now, we can talk about personal hypocrisy sometimes on that. I think,

so I think that's the first context that you're, you know, we're asking these questions

when the delta variant is surging.

...