After a year of bizarre behaviour and an unprecedented retreat from many of the values and activities that previous generations took for granted, I believe it is time that we started to embrace rational thought again and abandon fear-stricken panic.

The media and the government are trumpeting the line that we need as many people as possible to be vaccinated in order to regain our freedom. Indeed, anyone who doesn’t jump at the chance of getting jabbed is being portrayed as somehow holding everyone else back. This line of thinking is fundamentally flawed and needs to be debunked.

The Government’s own figures tell us that the vast majority of those who were likely to become ill enough to require hospital treatment have already been jabbed. This means that the initial rationale for lockdowns and all of the other restrictions we have had to endure, avoiding the NHS being overwhelmed, is no longer an issue. This simple fact alone is immensely powerful because if we are not suffering restrictions to our liberty for the practical reason of the continued functioning of the NHS then what is the reason for continued measures?

The SAGE committee has successfully hijacked the governance of our nation and imposed a zero-risk philosophy. It would appear that nobody is allowed to risk being ill under this new regime. The scientific powers that be bark out instructions and warnings of catastrophe that are amplified many times over by a media addicted to hysterical headlines.

Older readers may remember the arch villain Davros, the insane genius who created the Daleks an all-powerful cosmic threat that could only be defeated by Doctor Who or a flight of stairs. Over the past twelve months it has sometimes seemed that Davros would have been seen as something of a “wet” by comparison to the megalomaniacal puritans on the all-powerful SAGE committee.

We have lost sight of who we are and what our values have always been. It is not for the government to say that they will grant or take our freedom according to whether we have obeyed the sanctimonious writ of Whitty and co. The government and state are here to serve us not for us to be in thrall to them, that’s how democratic, free countries are supposed to work. The virus may have originated in China and it would appear the systems of government evolving during the pandemic originated from the same place.

Each of us is born free. It is our God given gift to have free choice and the ability to make our own minds up. We may choose to cede some of that freedom or individual sovereignty to the state in order to form a more cogent society but how much we give up and how much we retain should be our own choice.

Over the years many rulers have sought to steal our freedoms. They have used armies, internal repression and even money to make us compliant and docile but in the long run it never works because freedom is a never ending ideal and an unquenchable flame in the hearts of humanity.

The latest assault on our freedom is based on a tyranny of fear. The mass power of government and media have sought to terrify us into submission. Sadly, in all too many cases it appears to have worked and people adopted the philosophy that they would rather live in a cage than risk dying in freedom.

The whole point is this, we are free to choose. We can take the choice to surrender our freedom or we can decide to follow the recent words of Eric Clapton and “rebel against tyranny and arrogant authority” whilst craving “fellowship, compassion and love”

Whatever we do, we must always remember that our freedom can never be taken from us on a permanent basis it can only be surrendered and the choice is ultimately our own