Former Smiths frontman Morrissey has delivered yet another controversial take by comparing pandemic restrictions to slavery. 

In an interview with his nephew Sam Esty Rayner on his official website, Morrissey also described the coronavirus pandemic as ‘con-vid’.

“The bigger problem is that nobody can any longer agree with anyone else, and this is the main outcome of con-vid,” he said.

He continued: “it has brought the worst out in people, and we weren’t ever in this together. We are deprived of seeing and hearing other people, and above all, you want to be with others who see and hear what you see and hear, because this is basic oxygen for the human soul. Take it away and people are dead.”

After Rayner argued that society during the pandemic is “the precise description of slavery,” Morrissey agreed: “Precisely.”

“And more people are now forced into poverty which is another form of slavery, as is tax and Council Tax and all the other ways in which we are pinned down and tracked,” he said.

“Our present freedom is restricted to visiting supermarkets and buying sofas. The government act like Chinese emperors… “We will allow you to live as we do if you behave yourself,'” he added.

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Elsewhere in the interview, Rayner asked his uncle about how people have “tried to cancel you because of your views,” to which Morrissey replied: “You can’t cancel someone who has always been cancelled. When did you last see me on television, or hear me on the radio? I unintentionally invented the condition of being cancelled!”

“The music industry hasn’t ever celebrated me or offered me free food. I’ve always been treated like a scientific experiment gone wrong. I’m used to it. I’ve been immune to enemy fire for many years. I wear a bullet-proof vest in the bath,” he continued.

“It seems to me that as soon as one person boo’s they all start to boo, and then when someone cheers they all start to cheer… but that’s just a loose theory,” he concluded.

For more on this topic, head over to the Classic Rock Observer.

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