CoVID-19 – day 57

It’s the beginning of another week and there’s lots to be excited about so why do I feel so anxious? Maybe it’s about going through the motions, trying new ways of getting to the same place. Reading new revelations that really ought to shock us into rejecting the status quo and forging a new path. Unfortunately the scandals are beginning to feel stale, just different manifestations of the same pernicious evil.

I’m desperate for change but I can hold my hand up and admit I’m as guilty as the other armchair radicals of having too much investment in railing against the establishment and not enough investment in building new foundations.

The cold hard truth is that you are not suffering because someone hates you, its because they don’t even acknowledge your existence

As government support is waning, people feel less assured by its policy and guidelines but increasingly alarmed and suspicious. We all want to believe the magic of the magician even when we know it’s not real but it’s not the skepticism grounded in reality that bursts our bubble, it’s the lapse in concentration by the entertainer that exposes their technique.

There is something called plausible deniability and I’m beginning to understand what that means. It’s making stuff up but being able to spin the story to defend it from exposure. Unfortunately history teaches us that such lies persist through the point at which they wreak havoc at a considerable cost to human life. The truth comes out but only after the fact — what use that is.

Reading about people with learning disabilities in care not being given access to tests wasn’t shocking though it was disturbing. The reasoning behind it makes sense even if the outcome is reprehensible. There was no underlying discrimination of those with learning difficulties, it was simply a matter of logistics. The lack of testing capacity meant that it had to be targeted at a particular group (how else would you draw the line) and that group was elderly care home residents so what we really should be focusing on is the logistics rather than the human tragedy.

The lauding of heroes, those marvellous soldiers we make such noise about but in reality crap on from a great height, the concern for children’s education when it’s state schooled children not those in private schools and the scapegoating of teachers, all deflect from the fundamental ethos of this government grounded in transferring wealth and power upwards. The shear incompetence and web of lies are not by design, they are the product of the systematic dissolution of government and dismantling of support structures for those who need it most. The cold hard truth is that you are not suffering because someone hates you, its because they don’t even acknowledge your existence.

Something significant needs to happen but its not going to be a grand gesture or some new super revelation that will force the government into changing its priorities. It can only come as each medic treats the sick, each carer cares, each volunteer carries on and we all do our bit. Its clear that the push for undoing the lockdown is building up a head of steam and public opinion is not going to get in its way. Individually we have next to no agency on the national stage and there is no power block ready to operate as a firewall.

The only way I can see a mass car pile up being averted is for alliances to be formed in opposition to individual disastrous government initiatives. We already have an alliance between the teachers unions and the BMA and local authorities are refusing to adopt the new government guidleines. England stands alone in the UK in its new push and we have seen medics in Belgium at one hospital facing off their prime minister in a public display of disdain. This just needs to be as infectious as the coronavirus and more potent.