I've read this several times, but I'm nit actually clear what you are accusing the BBC or the government of. It's reasonable to call the first even from March 2020 a 'lockdown'. The rules in the UK were pretty clear - unless you are a keyworker don't leave your house apart from essential shopping or 1 hour of local excercise.
Since then restrictions have been eased in what can probably best be described as partial lockdowns.
How clear the rules are is irrelevant - they were theoretical, an occasional example made, but no one really gave a damn. If you followed those rules you're a gullible sucker, most people were in the parks drinking and socialising.
What universe are you in? April 2020 lockdown left the streets in Manchester dead for the first and only time I've ever seen, I think you might be revising history a bit
In London the parks were full, the ice cream shops were open, and if you think anyone was having their exercise limited to one hour a day you're unfortunately subservient. I have never worn a mask, and I have been on multi-hour rides around London without seeing a single mask. Dog walkers were all stopping for chats, people gathering at duck ponds for chats, parties continued to be had. My condolences to Manchester, it seems to have naive understanding of how the world works; stand up or get stepped on.
Weirdly I have a friend living in London who's giving the exact opposite history to you, he was shocked by how closely packed together people were in March 2021 in Manchester when he had to come through here for work.
You went on multi-hour rides around London without seeing a single mask? Yeah, nah, history revisionism from a place of wanting to rewrite history, your testimony isn't reliable.
Although things are re-opening now, I think the shut down in central london was more than you are saying.
I live in central london on a main road and traffic has been really low (relatively) for the last year. Normally even at 4am in the morning there is queueing traffic outside constantly, but even now at 10pm up to 10 minutes might go by without a car. It is a very clear reduction.
I do not believe that you could ride through London in April of this year or last year without seeing a mask. Right now maybe - back last march when the government said we shouldn't wear them maybe.
Things are re-opening now, but during the major lockdowns behaviur changed a lot. I say changed not stopped.
People were allowed out of the house to excersise, so any easy excersise routes (parks, paths, nice walkable streets) have a lot more foot traffic than normal. There is a canal near my home where typically outside commute hours people rarely pass - during deep lockdown it had foot traffic like a commuter station with people queuing to walk down it. But this is a sign of 'lock down' - it is people doing the only behaviur they are allowed to do outside their house.
In terms of open shops during major lockdown - I noticed that in Soho, people would gather with supermarket beers outside the closed nightclubs and street drink together. In fancier areas of town, I saw wine bars selling mulled wine covertly through a crack in the door - looking both ways up and down the street like a naughty school kid selling weed. But again these are changed behaviures that show that the normal version is banned. But I didn't see ice cream shops. Maybe now?
There was a huge uptick in the number of undeground raves - and I also heard this happened in manchester. There were several raves in the mile around my home and we'd find out about them when the police turned up in numbers. These were "break into a shut down shop and turn it into a club" events with hundreds of young partiers, not 8 people turning up for grannies birthday.
Since then restrictions have been eased in what can probably best be described as partial lockdowns.