Whatever happened to parliamentary democracy?

In the middle of a national crisis, Britain has become a parliamentary democracy without a parliament. The police now have extraordinary powers to fine and arrest those who break the lockdown. Do I hear you say that these are necessary powers for a time of pandemic? Maybe they are. But we have no parliament to raise the alarm if those powers are abused or hysteria and the urge to punish replace the calm implementation of the law.

Meanwhile everyone is asking questions about how ministers, the NHS and Public Health England failed to provide enough protective kit for doctors and nurses and wondering why Britain is lagging so far behind Germany in its ability to test the population. Everyone, that is, except the House of Commons and the House of Lords. They voted to give the state the right to restrict freedom of movement, and then exercised their own right to freedom of movement pretty damn decisively by getting the hell out of Westminster on 26 March.