UK Voters Smarter Than Government. Millions were cutting virus spread BEFORE lockdown.

Your government likes to get out in front of a parade, to preen with power and trumpet virtue. Data from Great Britain show voters were smarter than the government.  Without fines or force, they had cut 80% of their travel on shared public transport and 25% of their private car travel.  This makes sense, more sense than blanket rules.  Telling everyone to stay home does not.  The free market of ideas works.

This is not aberrant, not a data meteor from outer space.  Did you know that literacy was rising rapidly BEFORE it became government policy.  I used to think we owed it to our government.

From: "The Cultural Origins of Popular Literacy in England"

"In the absence of externally provided schools, indigenously supported settings were responsible for the creation and transmission of popular literacy.  Thus, over several centuries, the literate popular culture of England largely made itself."  

And this detail from the same passage: