There is no joy in watching people whose views and actions you otherwise respect getting so bogged down in the detail of everything that frustrates them about this Covid-19 age, that they have become obsessed with ideas of conspiracy theories. It is truly disconcerting to see great people reduced to eulogising the idea of a grand plan underpinning the pandemic itself, and the arrival of some new world order designed and set-in motion by a high-level intergovernmental networker based in Geneva.
This downward spiral or process that has hidden the legitimacy of the antilockdown platform has been underway for many months. Until now, the most concerning milestone was the backing and involvement of David Icke. But that concern has progressed to full red-flag danger now that there is talk of a Covid Crimes Tribunal being set up to prosecute those responsible for making the decisions affecting us all since the Coronavirus Pandemic began.
With so much media coverage being expended on the Brexit deal and the roll out of the COVID-19 Vaccine, you could be forgiven for simply overlooking everything else. It would be very easy to fall into the open elephant trap of believing that these are now the only stories in town.
Very regrettably, they are not. And whilst it seems extremely hard to believe that anything worse than the cycles of lockdowns and going through Tiers could be coming our way, the personal and real-life impact of an ongoing chain of poor, non-consequential decision making and choices made for the sake of political expediency on the part of people who should know a lot better, have been hurting – and yes, even killing people since the very early days of when this horrific chapter began.
It is certainly true that there is no excuse for what the Government and their advisors have done.
There was another way. A way that would have avoided the destruction of the UK Economy, the business closures, the job losses, the mental health issues, the domestic violence and the suicides to name but just a few of the consequences of the decisions taken and what these people have done.
Indeed, if the media were to give as much time and coverage to the real-life stories of destruction caused by the Lockdown and Social Distancing measures, then those still supporting Lockdowns would surely gain a real perspective of the cost of overreacting to a virus that has an impact arguably no worse than a very virulent strain of flu. This real news would surely snap the greater majority of people out of the idea that the Government has done the best that it could on our collective behalf all the way along.
For many of those who can see this reality already – that these are the consequences of an entire political class going completely the wrong way – it is becoming easier by the day to conclude that those responsible must be punished for what they have done.
Yet we all share the responsibility for having allowed our system of government and democracy to deteriorate so far that we have such inept and ill-equipped politicians running the Country. People who genuinely believe they are doing their job but don’t have the background, life experience nor wherewithal to deal with a national crisis as they should. A culture that has taken over the British Political system and the process of democracy so comprehensively that there is no easy way to replace them with people who would take responsibility for those they represent and lead as they should.
Talk of punishment – however measured that talk might appear to be – is likely to prove prescient and as such a very irresponsible act as a restriction on its severity in these unchartered circumstances cannot be assured.
When things really begin to go as bad as they surely will, as 2021 progresses and as the furlough scheme and the false floor economy comes to its end, increasing numbers of people will become angry and start to look for answers. They are unlikely to be ready to listen to reason once focus has been redirected upon blame and their passion over this grand injustice has been inflamed.
The best and arguably most painful form of punishment that can be applied to the people responsible for all of this is for them to lose their jobs and power. For them to be replaced by people who will undertake the responsibilities of the very same roles in the way that they should have, and for all of them to never again be allowed take over public office of any kind and be allowed to use it for their own benefit.
What we don’t need to do is encourage a journey from one extreme form of consequential group prejudice to the another, just as wokeism, the rights lobby and political correctness has already done and is still determined to do.
Violence is likely to be an inevitable progression from talk of tribunals in the circumstances that we can expect to come.
No matter how justified it may feel to enact it upon those who have avoidably created and engendered such levels of harm, the damage some great and avoidable reckoning visited upon the proponents of the Lockdown and the Economic Crash will do to British society will haunt us in ways that are completely unimaginable. It will do so beyond all of our lifetimes, and like the French Revolution and the Great Terror it precipitated would probably do so for Centuries to come.
The kind of thinking at work here is short term in political terms. It doesn’t respect the rules of the political game that exists and is at work across the UK. One that dictates that you can only change the rules when you are in power and you can only gain power by playing by the rules.
Those currently focusing on the blame game would do much better to expend their energies proactively and start to work towards the creation and development of an alternative political force.
After all, playing the long game in politics will ensure that all the bases in the short game are properly covered too.
Adam Tugwell 