This lockdown really has brought out the power hungry little men

[Tibola]

Give someone a high vis and an ID badge and suddenly you’ve got a mini village dictator on your hands.

I give you the parish council. Headed by a man who has taken it upon himself to “patrol” the village looking for rule breakers. He likes to talk about his patrol a lot on FB. Two day’s ago they were given ID badges by the POLICE so people would know they were from the village response team when they dropped food parcels.

He mentioned the ID badges 57372772 times (with pics) and then refused them to anyone who wasn’t “frontline village response”. His patrol involves questioning why people are out of their houses. And watching for suspicious people. And generally walking around in a high vis.

Little fucking goblin (sorry I’ve had a hard day)

Our village also has two rival volunteer groups! A few people set up a group on Facebook for people to volunteer to help/ ask for help and it was all very friendly and polite until the local parish councillor got in a rage and said that all requests needed to go through the village 'emergency response group' instead. About 20 people said that they had never heard of such a group and were told that they should have attended the parish council meeting when it was set up - in 2010!

VanillaGodzilla - excellent post!

The break down of normalcy and other people's bizarre behaviour is far more worrying to me than the virus tbh. I always think we are only a few steps away from the 'villagers' patrolling the local area with sticks and torches. Nervous laughter

We don’t have a village group - yet

We do have a self appointed busy body down our lane who is out every day making sure we’re abiding by her made up rules

She’s already been over to tell me she’s going to report me to the police for going out more than once a day - a) there’s no rule to say I can only go out once per day, and b) I have horses that I need to go to twice a day

I was out walking the dog with my teen DD the other day, DD was laughing about something and she popped up to tell DD off as now wasn’t the time for laughing

This morning I opened my front door to let the cat out to find her posting something in my letter box (our dog kills the post so we have one screwed to the wall outside) and she started shrieking about me breaking the 2 metre distance rule. I had no idea she was there, and piss off away from my front door.

We’re all ignoring her at the moment, there’s only 8 houses, including hers, down our lane so with a bit of luck she’ll join a volunteer group somewhere a bit busier and leave us all alone.

Facebook is the worst though, I’ve left a load of the community groups as the posts were just horrendous

Someone was posting photos of cars out and about that didn’t have the local car registration prefix claiming they were holiday makers - lots of people pointed out that they had lived here for years but didn’t have the local prefix

People shaming a local business for remaining open - until they discovered the business is building ventilators. Now we’ve got people demanding the ventilators stay here for ‘local people’

Then last night, huge fuss because a hairdresser was open. Hairdresser posted to say she wasn’t open, that her and her boyfriend lived in the flat above her shop and she was simply cutting his hair. No one seems to have taken any notice of her reply as it’s full of people demanding she be sent to prison, fined thousands of ££, put in the stocks, strung up, etc, etc

People have gone mad

Thanks guys. On rereading it I started to wonder if I couldn't do with a Spanish soldier myself. Help me with some of that built up tension

Someone in a local group posted a picture of a family. I pointed out they could be fleeing domestic violence, the children could be adopted or fostered and images on social media could put them in danger. She did not like this. The post was deleted. I wish people would just fuck off and mind their own business.

Well said, VanillaGodzilla

Hazel I hope they've updated their emergency plan since 2010.

Our village has in its emergency plan that the Methodist church will become a temporary morgue, except it is now someone's home.
Not sure they want dead bodies in the sitting room whilst they are watching tv. No-one thought about updating it since it was written.

Brilliant thread, just brilliant.

I left our town Covid-19 emergency response group because I could feel my mental capacity being drained to nothing with the utter crap fest of posts and responses.

But I'm now eternally grateful we moved away from village life a few years ago. All the posters on here from villages are confirming we did the right thing

My street has a whatsapp group that fortunately I'm not in. My neighbour sends me screenshots every now and then. It's hilarious.

God I feel so lucky. My entire FB local is just people falling over each other to offer to buy groceries for people who are isolating.

Our village FB group haven't lost the plot yet
So far it's just ads with phone numbers of the nearest village shop (ours closed at the end of last year) as that village has offered to deliver orders called in and paid for over the phone.
Biggest Air raid warden behaviour came from mutiple people had contacted the poice over an RV that keeps turning up and spending a few nights then dissaperaing up the lanes. But they only posted once the police had sorted it and sent the RV dwellers back to their normal home and told them we aren't open to holidaymakers.
I'm sure they'll get crazy once cabin fever sets in.

Brilliant thread, just brilliant.

But what is this thread really about?

Is it about having fun and light hearted stress relieving banter or is it about mocking people who are taking extra precautions?

I remember the first threads on mumsnet about the coronavirus. The mockery and piss taking. The pile ons by the doubters. Comments like "it's only the flu"..."you're being ridiculous and scaremongering" ..."it will not happen here, fact"..."of course it's OK to go to the gym, its fine"..."I saw someone in a mask today, what a ludicrous overreaction"

I remember people reporting posts as scaremongering and trying to get them taken down.

I get that banter is good for morale sometimes, but is it really necessary for groups of people to continuously mock others just for being overly cautious? I'm not so sure.

It's not about people being overly cautious. It's about people trying to police the behaviour of others, even when that behaviour is perfectly legal and in keeping with the spirit of what the social distancing is trying to achieve.

Spending time out and about patrolling the village seems like the opposite of being overly cautious to me. It’s not like the virus is going to respect Mr. Frontline Village Patrol’s high-vis and lanyard and pass him by.

It's about people trying to police the behaviour of others,

Partly, I suppose

Flax I was one of the ones that took it seriously from the start, I was mocked by people at work too.

But I can see why people need to have banter about the people that are way too ott and are going around policing others.

@Flaxmeadow The guy in my village is doing the opposite to taking extra precautions

There is a lady in my street who is overly cautious. She’s only eating tinned food so she can bleach the tins, she’s leaving her shopping out on the drive way for 2 days before taking it in. No-one is taking the piss out of her because we all know she’s scared.

Hi-vis and lanyard men are taking more risks because they are out more and approaching/talking to more people

Is it about having fun and light hearted stress relieving banter or is it about mocking people who are taking extra precautions?

I think it's about highlighting the appalling behaviour of those who have taken it upon themselves to police others.

Spending time out and about patrolling the village seems like the opposite of being overly cautious to me

I get that many mumsnetters are very middle class, often have libertarian ideals, and live in villages (or urban gated apartment blocks) but many people live in quite deprived urban areas and IMO people here are wanting more restrictions. They would welcome patrols. I'm not saying I agree with vigilantes, but there are problems with anti social behaviour in many areas. Taking the law into your own hands is wrong yes but after the criticism of the police in the media yesterday, I fear some people will just not give a shit again. Make non essential journeys again and then we will all be back to sqaure 1 and then some might start up even more patrols

You know the Coronastapo would have been the first to report suspected Jews to the authorities in Nazi Germany.

People's behaviour during this whole thing has reminded me just how thick most people are (not just the Covidstapo, but also the spitters, those having parties for 20 people, etc.)

A large proportion of the population would happily give police carte blanche to shoot suspected lawbreakers in the street.

HRFT so apologies if already quoted but this reminds me of the quote by Mrs Crawley in Downton Abbey

It always happens when you give these little people power, it goes to their heads like strong drink.

Flax I was one of the ones that took it seriously from the start, I was mocked by people at work too.

Same here. It was so frustrating wasnt it and seems so long ago now

people live in quite deprived urban areas and IMO people here are wanting more restrictions. They would welcome patrols

I live in an area of Manchester that routinely gets absolutely slated by MNers when discussed and trust me, we don't want more restrictions and we certainly don't want vigilante patrols.

I'm not sure 'people would welcome patrols' is that convincing an argument for why we should have them. Several people in my town have quite happily said they'd welcome having the army on the streets. Dunno precisely wtf it is they want the army to DO when almost everyone is obeying the guidelines and the army are currently busy setting up a temporary hospital.