The PSNI set up road blocks to stop people going to the beach yet keep ignoring republican breaches of social distancing

“The police today urged people not to travel to popular tourist areas during the lockdown. Officers had to put up traffic diversions on the north coast to deal with the influx of yesterday’s visitors.”

Officers “had to put up traffic diversions”. But did they?

Not only did they not have to put up such diversions, it is not immediately clear that they had the power to do so.

The PSNI overstepping their powers at this time has been raised by people such as the former Presbyterian moderator Norman Hamilton. And even if they did have the power to stop people going to the seaside due to lockdown, they certainly did not “have to” put up such checkpoints.

The national broadcaster should be more vigilant in its language and it should scrutinise the proportionality of such decisions.

Also, if the police are going to be so tough about people going to the beach on a sunny day amid mounting evidence about how safe it is to be outside if people stay a bit apart, why was yet another republican funeral in which social distancing was flagrantly breached allowed? Why does the PSNI do nothing about these gatherings?

Some people will rush to say that you have to be sensitive around a funeral, which is true but then think of the now thousands of people (when non Covid deaths are considered) who have died during lockdown but not had a proper funeral because their relatives stick by the rules that have been set.

It is all the more galling to think that the party with the greatest influence in the republican community, Sinn Fein, is slowing lockdown, yet these breaches keeps happening.

And look, on the opposite page (of the print edition, in which the Picture of the Day is of a crowded beach in sunshine in Bournemouth), what the slowing means for Northern Ireland. In England, people are now able to enjoy the beaches and the fine weather. But we will not be able to emerge from any part of lockdown until all parties agree, which in effect means until Sinn Fein agrees so.