Small Change

This will change everything they say. I doubt it. We didn’t get here overnight and I’m not certain that a few weeks of pandemic-related ‘isolation’ can make a substantial impact on who we are.

Will we emerge from our isolation chrysalis as beautiful, socially aware butterflies or crawl out like the ugly and rapacious insects that entered the lockdown?

We may all have experienced a greater sense of community and a sudden desire to be public spirited. This appears to have been accompanied by a need to be seen to be doing something. Falling over ourselves to publicly thank the NHS or other vital workers, being holier than thou with our evisceration of selfish people visiting parks or beaches. We all love the NHS now but for consecutive elections we have elected a government who have underfunded them. Will our support extend to real action beyond CV-19?

On a less cynical note I should mention that my own attempts to volunteer for good causes have largely been hampered by the vast quantity of others doing the same. Where I have succeeded in helping a good cause I have felt crowded-out by the staggering influx of like-minded folk. It appears that some charitable organisations are struggling to cope with actual goodwill.

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

Some good may come of this, unless we all retreat to our day jobs once lockdown is over. For all those who do well, crime still persists. Our own local high street has had cases of theft and vandalism whilst fraud, particularly that targeting the housebound, has risen. Meanwhile the uneducated burn 5G masts like modern-day witchfinders and curtain twitchers report those who dare to leave the house more than once a day. We want to believe that the good will out but misguided human nature and the status quo fights to prevail.

The virus has prompted calls for a political ceasefire though clearly divisions still remain. There are those who think the current Government can do no wrong, whilst others argue about the lack of PPE and testing, not to mention the death rate. Even that sentence determines which side I sit, without having read any of my other posts. Opposition parties appear to have evaporated, though the absence of the commons actually sitting to address the issues doesn’t help. Labour’s endless leadership race finally finished but it only took a matter of days for the party’s factions to return to civil war. Same old, same old.

People say that what we need is strong leadership but look no further than Bolsonaro or Trump to see that populist leaders look to reassert their own authority and blame rather than support others. What of our own jocular populist in chief?

The concept that de pfeffel ‘took one for the team’ by contracting coronavirus and being hospitalised is almost as absurd as his newfound love for the NHS. For one thing there’s no team in I as far as BJ is concerned. The notion that he was hiding in hospital is far more likely – making others deliver platitudes and evasions at the daily CV-19 update. He has a history of hiding, whether in fridges to avoid seeing a child on a hospital floor , or in foreign countries when tricky votes come up in the commons .

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Meanwhile I see a million memes or messages claiming that at least it’s stopped us arguing about Brexit. Yet the ghost of Brexit may have prevented us joining an EU scheme to obtain PPE  .There may never come a time when Brexit is not part of the UK’s body politic, this argument will continue when all the other noise has faded away.

If we want change, we will have to fight for it, as always. Rest assured that the governments and corporations want ‘normality’ as soon as possible. To rely on pop music to sign off I’d suggest you talk to the man in the mirror while you have chance, it’s been a long time coming….