Why won’t others take sides on the most important political issue for 60 years?

Douglas Murray says he has no idea whether I am right or wrong about whether the government has acted correctly over the coronavirus. Why on earth not? I have not endured having a hundred buckets of slime tipped over my head over the past few weeks to provide a sort of sporting spectacle for Douglas or anyone else to enjoy. I do not argue for the sake of it. I loathe the abuse and the solitude as much as anyone might expect me to. I see my country in danger of grave and lasting threats to its freedom and its prosperity. I fear a future of over-mighty officials and police displaying the unbridled insolence of office, a dead political consensus, combined with confiscatory tax, shrivelled savings and pensions, lower wages and standards of living, and diminished hopes for the young. I thought it my duty to use my wits, such as they are, my sense of proportion and my many years of education and experience (for which I owe a debt to my parents, my country and my trade that I cannot repay) to oppose this danger. Nobody of any sense can fail to take sides or care about this. If Douglas wants to support this idiocy, he should say so. If he is against it, then he should say so. But he can keep his useless admiration for my ‘argumentative’ and ‘unintimidateable’ nature.

Peter Hitchens's letter appears in this week's Spectator