You couldn’t make it up (again)
What is that old saying – “People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones”?
It occurred to me over the weekend that, unintentionally or otherwise, the home truths are beginning to come home in spades as we enter the third [or is it the fourth?] week of the lockdown with the Government having announced that we’re going to be in it for at least another fortnight … and possibly a lot longer than that … because it apparently “depends upon the science” and some sort of “five point” plan of preconditions first.
Let me string together a couple of examples:
THE PERFORMANCE OF THE GOVERNMENT
There’s no doubt we’re currently paddling, or indeed drifting, in unchartered territory and (for me) once again this demonstrates the 21st Century difficulties with the whole concept of democracy – especially since “the Establishment” has great difficulty in wrestling with how modern social media not only works but affects the issues, especially those that play havoc with “business as it has always been done” in the past.
I’m reheating an old example here, but as a case in point I often refer people to the famous bit of newsreel during the (I think it was) 1950 General Election campaign when, as the then Premier Clem Atlee was about to board a train at a London terminus, a very respectful reporter with a microphone asked him if he’d like to say anything to the nation.
“No” said Atlee and then simply turned and went up the steps into his carriage.
These days everything a politician does (or doesn’t do) is fair game for the media, whose representatives traditionally tread a very taught tightrope between accepting everything they’re told by “the Establishment” and spewing either opinion pieces or allowing any renta-mouth publicity-seeking “expert” to blast those in power for any and everything they’re doing.
At one and the same time this allows them to give simultaneous prominence to both cosy warm-hearted “We’re all in this together” pieces about our “wonderful NHS heroes”, and how to survive the lockdown, on the one hand … and then “stupid virus louts either panic-buying up supermarket stocks and lavatory paper … flouting the social distancing rules … holding rave parties with 400 guests … driving 200 miles to go fishing in Dorset … or stealing PPE supplies from a London hospital”, on the other, without batting an eyelid.
I’m no apologist for any UK politician, let alone a Government, but one group that tends to get my dander up is that which throw brickbats at the Government whilst relying entirely (or nearly so) upon hindsight for their ammo.
Where were Piers Morgan and his Fleet Street chums, the Labour Opposition and the innumerable now familiar medical/scientific “expert” critics – now all loading up on a daily basis to hurl wooden balls at the “coconuts painted with the faces of Government ministers” mounted on the wall of the political fairground stall – at the turn of the year when news of the Wuhan outbreak of the coronavirus first broke?
I’ll tell you.
They were all concentrating upon the aftermath of the General Election, the imminent departure of the UK from the EU, how many matches early Liverpool would annexe the Premier League title and the borefest that was to become the post-Corbyn Labour leadership contest.
Some sort of high point of the genre was reached on Saturday night, whilst I was listening to Radio Five Live in the wee hours, when some half-wit from Sheffield (I think it was) rang in to remind us of every decision the Government had taken since January, punctuated afterwards with a “Why, oh why, didn’t they … have 500 million sets 
of PPE kit in stock in readiness for this sort of thing … [any reader still with me can add here his or her own favourite Government decisions during the coronavirus crisis that subsequently may have been proved to be wrong or too late, or too costly etc. etc.] …?” rant.
Shortly after listening him engaging the phone-in host Jim Davis – who is very good by the way – for about 20 minutes, I switched the radio off in the pursuit of silence and sleep.
You can imagine Mr Sheffield being transported back eighty years to any point between May and August 1940, ringing in to the BBC at Broadcasting House and creating merry hell about Britain’s lack of preparedness for the War and, while he was at it, that old has-been, over-the-hill chancer Churchill being elected Prime Minister (“he’s already ballsed up the Norwegian campaign … we didn’t send the right troops or equipment to the Continent and now Dunkirk has been a complete humiliation/disaster, we haven’t got enough planes or pilots, the Germans are going to invade …”) … and so on … ad infinitum.
It wouldn’t have happened, of course, because the Government and the BBC wouldn’t have allowed it.
I make my point.
The other irony is that – now that things have got tough – people want strong decisive government:
“Why didn’t they lock us down in February? They wasted time and look where it’s got us!“
It wouldn’t surprise me at all if those who are the loudest in making this criticism are precisely those who would have been bleating outrage at the violation of their individual freedoms if a February lockdown had been ordered.
First business wants helping, so the Government helps it. But now it’s not enough.
Ditto food, unemployment, food banks, being locked in with your kids who are driving you nuts because you’ve got to spend time with them – now it’s “shock, horror”: they won’t be going back to school – their education’s going to be affected.
Meanwhile (and I’m not saying this is anyone’s fault) the unmentionable is often left unsaid – e.g. in some sections of society, going back to school is the best or only way some kids will get a decent meal or two per day.
Now we discover that BAME individuals (14% of the population) have sadly been disproportionately prevalent (over 30%) amongst those who have succumbed to the coronavirus.
That’s got to be somebody’s fault even though so far nobody has yet got to the bottom of why it has happened.
And so it goes on.
COMPLETELY MISSING THE POINT
It’s amazing how people who carve out a living via publicity – or make a pact with that particular devil – have so little self-awareness.
First, an honorary mention to Dr Catherine Calderwood, Scotland’s chief medical officer, who eventually had to resign after not once but twice ignoring the advice she was giving her nation to stay indoors and not travel;
Next to Harry and Meghan Windsor, who over the New Year created a huge hoo-hah by abandoning their royal life and fleeing, eventually (well currently) to Los Angeles to live a new luxury life as ‘celebrities’ and think that anyone in the UK still cares about them; firstly, by Harry sending a “thanks to all our NHS key workers, you show the best of British to the world” message … and now overnight scoring another spectacular own goal by claiming that that the UK’s coronavirus crisis is not as bad as its media makes out – see here for a piece by Amelia Wynne as appears on the website of the – DAILY MAIL
Now to our venerable House of Lords peers who, having been cut off from their very healthy £323 per diem daily attendance allowance since being sent into lockdown, are now agitating to get it reinstated for the prospective inconvenience of having to log in to the Zoom software in order to take part in “virtual” House of Lords proceedings – see here for an article by Camilla Tominey on the website of the – DAILY TELEGRAPH
And, inevitably perhaps, finally to Victoria Beckham, David’s untalented WAG, who famously couldn’t hold a tune when she was in the Spice Girls and has since somehow made a name for herself in the fashion world with her own label – a vanity project which has never made a profit but has lost Team Beckham tens of millions of pounds over the past decade. Her latest news is that she has now furlonged her staff – see here for a report by Katie Hind as appears on the website of the – DAILY MAIL
