And so it continues…

Tuesday 9^th February 2021

…the now seemingly endless lock-down. On it goes, with little end in sight. Having managed three of these now, they ought to feel easier, and in some ways, I think it is easier, insomuch as we know how it works. And yet, maybe because it is winter, or maybe because we clearly have no actual real leadership, which can lead to feelings of impending doom, and hopelessness, I think this one feels worse, harder, and longer.

I have said before that everything is political. I stand by this, and maybe a global pandemic is the most political event of all, other than war. People sometimes say, to me or to one another: well, knitting isn’t political (or substitute another craft). But it is, as the on-going, often painful debate about racism in crafting, including knitting, surely proved. 

If ever an event shone a political light into our society, it is the pandemic. Political bias has informed every single step the UK government has taken. Being a Conservative government, this bias has been led by a toxic blend of ‘free market’, laissez-faire insouciance, coupled with deliberate blind-spotting over the tragic injustices that the pandemic has wrought upon those who have the least resilience, in economic, educational, or health terms. 

A marked Conservative reluctance to ‘interfere’ led to a shocking number of late decisions, for example, or to no decisions ever being taken. This is a very powerful trait of most Conservatives. It stems largely from a secure knowledge that they are the least likely to suffer the consequences, because for example, they are financially insulated, or have access to superior and immediate healthcare, or have no need to work in society, among other people, thus minimising their own risk exposure. 

Another trait of many right-leaning thinkers is the tendency to blame ‘the little people’ when things go wrong. Thus, it is our fault (the public), if Covid numbers take a depressing upwards turn.  It is not the fault of the government, for failing, for example, to close or at least protect borders; or for chucking 10 quid meal-deal at us all summer and insisting it was our patriotic duty to eat out, get back to the office, thus using trains and buses, and start buying coffee and sandwiches again. 

Examples of people frankly and blatantly flouting Covid rules are not hard to find, and we read stories of throngs of wedding guests, or people holding illegal parties. None of this can be condoned. But banning the mixing of households, which they conflate with a 200-strong wedding party, is always the first thing the government does, and the last they lift, is the ultimate in blaming us. And yet, there seems to be no comprehension of the government’s own staggering failures of leadership and example, the most powerful of which remains the sordid Cummings affair. 

If you take any aspect of the management of our response – and I think management is vastly over stating it – you will see the same pattern emerge. It must be led by the private sector, even though in all cases in this pandemic other than pharm-led vaccine research, the private sector has failed to deliver. Key examples of this are the doomed track and trace system, sourcing often useless PPE, freezing out local government public health capabilities from the very start, and even the provision of food aid parcels. All pathetic, shameful examples of cronyism and carelessness.

Likewise, if you examine where the government has targeted its efforts to get us out of lock-down, it has been 100% led by economic goals. That is why schools closed first in March 2020, but pubs didn’t close for a further week. That is why Universities were, bafflingly, allowed to open up as usual in September and stay open until Christmas, thus causing 100s of 1,000s of people to criss-cross the country in a model of how to efficiently spread a virus. 

What now baffles me, is why no-one seriously questions the Prime Minister, or the Government. Unlike many similar countries, we have no strategies other than lock-down. That’s it. I think it way past time that there was some meaningful public consultation about how we pick our way out of this mire. If I was asked, I would far rather be allowed to have coffee in my daughter’s kitchen, than have the pubs open, for example, and I believe that is also far less dangerous. I would like small, independent shops, and the charity sector, to be allowed to open up before shopping centres and big-box stores. And I would like cafes to be open, while pubs stay shut, for as long as it takes. Universities should be forced to remain largely delivering on-line learning, and big venue sport should take place with no massive crowds. I would welcome measures to forbid leisure travel outside your county, for the rest of the year. I say this in spite of the fact that this would mean my own business would continue to be closed.  In other words, in every example of unlocking the UK, I would start local, and more importantly, small. But I think we all know that the opposite will happen. Because of the stripe of government, its insularity, and its absence of humanity.

In the last 12 months, my world has shrunk. I no longer travel for work, something I did a lot, and enjoyed. Now, my work is completely different, and very local – so local, it’s micro-local! I no longer see my family, or friends. I don’t teach, I don’t design much, and I don’t go to any social events. The pandemic has robbed us of so much. But I really don’t think it is right that we have done all we can – most of us, the notable exceptions remain abhorrent to me, both those that hit the national headlines, and those I know of from my own circle of former acquaintances – in order for Johnson’s mates running pub chains, shops, and so-called power-house businesses, to be the first to lead the post-lock-down charge, and thus, almost certainly, lead us grimly into another lock-down about 3 months later. 

I am far from advocating revolution. But it is time for an inclusive conversation. The more perceptive may have discerned that I am not a Conservative. And yet, at the start of this shit-storm, I found myself quite naturally supporting the government, wishing it well, even – momentarily – believing in it. That is not to say that I applauded their every move, but I so wanted it to be a national effort that would not take refuge in political ideology. I was wrong. This government has, if anything, saturated its every pandemic move in disgusting political bias, point-scoring, and cruelty. Is cruelty going too far? Far from it. The history books will, for example, tell the true story of what happened in the elderly care sector from late January 2020 to – well, pretty much to date, and this will have harrowing parallels with mass-killings in the history of 20th century Europe. Why? Because that is a sector that has no voice, it is staffed by people for whom the government has no regard, and populated by residents about which it does not care. Expand this image to the rest of the ‘support’ or care sector, throw the net wider, and include the millions who live in supported settings because they are autistic, or have learning disabilities, for example. Here, the death rate has been far lower, but that is literally only because most of these people are not as clinically vulnerable. Both these sectors of our society, have been ignored. The government didn’t even include care home deaths for months and months.

But, at the same time, it is these people, the elderly, the sick, the disabled, who will continue to bear the full brunt of lock-down. Because all we have is lock-down, and banning households from seeing one another. If the government could place these people at the heart of their so-called lock-down exit strategy, it would look very different from if they place the founder of J D Wetherspoon at the centre of the model. But I think I know what they will do.