Wetherspoon to remove lockdown sceptic posters — including one featuring Lord Sumption

‘It is fair to say that a few of the comments are out of date’, says pub spokesperson

Wetherspoon says it will remove a series of lockdown-sceptical posters from its pub windows, including one featuring former Supreme Court justice Lord Sumption.

The unlikely alliance came about after the pub chain’s magazine, Wetherspoon News, reproduced a series of articles that criticise the government’s approach to the coronavirus pandemic.

Among the articles, many of which have been printed off and placed in pub windows, is The Telegraph piece headlined, ‘Lord Sumption: Ministers stoked fear to justify lockdowns’.

The article, first published in October, picked up on comments made by the former Supreme Court justice during an online lecture organised by Cambridge University.

As reported by Legal Cheek at the time, seventy-one-year-old Sumption accused ministers of displaying a “cavalier disregard for the limits of their legal powers”, arguing that the government had no power to pass lockdown regulations under the Public Health Act.

The pub paper also features articles from The Sunday Times, The Guardian, New Statesman and The Independent, as well a piece penned by company chairman Tim Martin.

“It is fair to say that a few of the comments are out of date,” a spokesperson for Wetherspoon told The Independent. “We intend to take the posters down from all Wetherspoon pubs in the next few days.”

They added: “It is vital in a democracy to have an informed debate. As a result there may be an opportunity to replace the posters with more up-to-date articles in due course.”

Figures yesterday revealed a further 529 people have died in the UK after testing positive for coronavirus, while another 46,169 cases were reported. This brings the UK death toll to 81,960.