and develop and therefore avoid the need for a mandatory lockdown? its almost a mirror image of the conversation we were having earlier, coming into the weekend of the 13th of march, the government had not reacted quickly enough because the disease was further advanced than the government believed and we believe. there was no appetite to take it any further. of course, in theory it would have been possible to deliver the stay at home message is an advisory rather than mandatory message but there was some evidence emerging, again some other anecdotal, that having advised people to stay away from crowded indoor spaces like pubs and so on that they wouldn t. i don t know whether it was a focus group, i seem to remember one of the number ten team saying is what we re hearing that if you meant us to stay away from the pubs you would close the pubs. so it seemed necessary to impose mandatory lockdown given how quickly the disease was moving in order to minimise that risk. lard orde