Covid: Stick with the rules during lockdown, says Patel - BBC News
Home Secretary Priti Patel says the "horrifying" death toll underlines the need to follow restrictions.
The police are stepping up enforcement because they believe many people breaking the Covid regulations are doing so because they are stubborn, not because they don’t understand what is allowed.

The public, police, and legal experts do struggle to keep up with the ever-changing rules.

But the organisers of a party on a boat in Hertfordshire, the passengers on a minibus heading for Wales, and the couple who travelled 120 miles to "watch seals" would have struggled to explain to the officers issuing them with fines that they were confused.

Those were clear breaches. More complicated is the fine line between the law - which police officers can enforce - and the government guidance, which they can’t.

No law says exercise can only be conducted once a day, or for a specific duration. These are pieces of firm guidance, along with the request to "stay local", which resulted in criticism of the prime minister after his bike ride in east London.

It would be difficult to set a distance limit which would work for both people living in rural areas and inner cities. Impossible to prove that a 65-minute run was in breach of the law.

Which is why the success of the measures will rely on personal responsibility in the end.

And why some experts are saying that different messages such as "act like you’ve got it" or "thanks for doing the right thing" might cut through better than a list of regulations to be obeyed.