It feels like the level of ridiculousness the Government has reached may now have surpassed the point where everyday normal people feel compelled to ask others to pitch them so they can check they haven’t got it all wrong. We can see that whatever it is, it is all very wrong.
With this morning’s headlines telling us that 1200 doctors and experts have called the ‘unlocking’ next week ‘criminal’, piggybacking on the news that health workers are about to have their Covid vaccinations imposed upon them, the number of people who are still confident and comfortable with everything that the Johnson Government is has passed the brow of that hill called a majority and is quickly heading down to being the relative few.
There is very little that can be called practical where the Johnson Government’s approach to dealing with the Covid Pandemic has been concerned. In fact, pretty much every decision made has been for effect, rather than dealing with any of the issues caused by this crisis head on. This is a government that ducks and dives to avoid the real issues whilst using a subservient media to communicate a narrative telling us that they and their specialists are the only people who really know what’s going on.
Had it not been for the fear-driven ideologies of career conformists who suddenly found themselves elevated to a public platform against the backdrop of totally inept politicians without even the slightest idea of how to lead, Lockdowns would never have happened. We would now be living with Covid in the most practical ways possible, dealing with illness for those affected as it arises and otherwise getting on with life responsibility without deliberately projecting our fears onto others. We would very Britishly be making the very best of it as we possibly can.
There was always an alternative to Lockdown. And if Lockdown had really been necessary, there were much better ways to deal with the financial fallout from the crisis too.
Yet the laissez-faire hangover of the free-market ideology that the Government applied in its approach to dealing with business, financiers and the markets when they issued the first Lockdown orders meant that as usual when there is a crisis, the same people are being expected to pick up the bill, whilst others line their pockets. To the elite, this is apparently all very run-of-the-mill.
The question of social distancing measures aside for a moment, the bill that Rishi Sunak, Boris and all their chums have racked up on our behalf for no good reason is already much more than the UK can afford. The UK was already bankrupt before this money printing bonanza started when Lockdowns began, and the prioritisation of what might happen if we don’t eradicate a virus vs. the practical implications for every other part of normal life, means that the dangerous, myopic idealism that we are being subjected to by our leadership, is a form of tyranny that we can simply no longer afford to indulge.
No. This is not a question of not considering those who are clinically vulnerable or of ignoring those who have looked the worst part of Covid in the eye when loved ones have been lost.
The problem with focusing only on the views that come from personal tragedies is that for anyone experiencing vulnerability or the white-hot pain that grief gives everyone before time has allowed proper healing to take place, the response to what is going on around us is highly subjective. It is a situation that does not lend itself to the objectivity required for public policy making in just about every possible way.
The list of consequences for others is already too long to write. Many of those who have or will suffer will forever remain unknown.
Amongst them are depression, suicide, domestic violence, mental health issues, financial loss, loss of jobs, loss of business, loss of credible qualifications, loss of contact with communities and the ability to live socially in any kind of meaningful form.
The reason the Government and influencers around them fuelling their fears are inflicting all of this – is simply because they can. There is no grand conspiracy at work – even though the evidence can be interpreted to suggest otherwise.
However, being able to do something because you can, doesn’t mean that you should do it. And real power is as much about not acting as it is about acting. Leadership is about only doing the things that are objectively right, not about being swayed by what anyone with their own agenda says that they should.
Few if any and probably none of the decisions made by Government since March last year have been objective. They have not been made in our best interests or aligned with a real appreciation and understanding of what the role of Government and our Prime Minister is actually for.
If the naysayers with power continue to succeed in influencing Government Policy, keeping us restricted here or there in some way, or under Lockdown once again by the Autumn – as most of us expect – the financial crisis that is already looming. that has been exacerbated by what they have already done, is likely to arrive even sooner that it might.
It is then that the idealists pushing this nonsense where they can value one life over all others will really begin to understand the true concept of cost.
We need everything opened up properly as quickly as possible with no ambiguity over social distancing or ‘voluntary rules’. Leaving anything open to question for people or for businesses simply will not do.
Its time for us to live to learn with Covid as we always should have and would have done so if politicians who cared about what happens to us all had always been in control.
Adam Tugwell 