The Coronavirus Diaries, 16th March 2021

Just as we were starting to think we were beginning to see an end to our current socially distanced, locked down lives, we learn there has been a case of the South African variant locally. Celia and I picked up our self testing kits this afternoon. We’ll return the swabs tomorrow and hope the results are a) quick and b) negative.

As usual I watched Channel 4 News, though I was cooking at the same time so there were quite a few moments when I listened rather than watched. Boris Johnson was on. Everything about Johnson repels me. His measly words, his lies, his vanity. Tonight was no different. As the news went on I heard about the stark warning that has been issued about the future of the NHS unless there is a huge cash injection. The government has remained silent on this issue. It is no secret that although in public the Tories laud the NHS, in private they would like to see it in private hands. I have no doubt at all that for some this will be seen as the opportunity to sell great chunks of it off and the health of the nation will suffer.

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The Coronavirus Diaries, 10th June 2020

I am writing this in the morning, so unless I add to it later it will hardly be an account of my day’s doings. The rain has returned, so MasterB and I, having breakfasted, have returned to bed for a lazy lie-in. The water heater is on, and in a while I shall get up, wash and dress.

The internet is again absent, so agin I am writing this on a word processing app, and shall copy paste when I get the opportunity. I can’t read the news online, see what is outraging people on Twitter, and I have never taken watching daytime television so I am nicely out of the immediate loop.

Yesterday there was a lot of talk about removing statues of people who have part of the continuing history of black oppression and exploitation. Sadiq Khan, London’s mayor, called for all such statues to be removed, and street names commemorating such people to be changed. I don’t think I agree.

I found myself more in tune with a black academic, whose name I unfortunately did not catch, in Scotland who believes the statues should remain, but with additional information giving a more balanced account of that person’s life. He believes we are in danger of airbrushing inconvenient and unpalatable truths out of our history if we simply remove the evidence that these people were respected and admired. As a white person, educated to think of Admiral Nelson as a great hero, learning he was pro-slavery was a shock. It doesn’t make him a less able naval officer, but it does remind us that all human beings are flawed and have failings, some greater than others. Churchill too falls into the same category.

We’ll be back

My neighbour just sent me this photograph. It’s of a nearby building.

Bedecked

With nine million people in London who voted overwhelmingly to remain in the EU, and the majority of voters across the UK in the December 2019 general election voting for parties that at the least wanted a second referendum, it’s hardly surprising we are not all getting behind Brexit. This was the scene last night in Parliament Square.

English, British, European – for how long?

We-ell. Where are we now? To be honest I don’t know. Johnson is a slippery beast. Never in my life have I experienced what it is to have a senior politician who has such a distant relationship with truth. I have loathed Margaret Thatcher, considered her opinions and policies wrong and divisive, but I never doubted she believed in what she was doing. With Johnson, no. It’s all about him, his ego. Just read his book about Churchill if you don’t believe me. It’s a book about Johnson as he would like us see him. A fantasy masquerading as history. I am getting an inkling of what it must have been like to be Italian all these years. I don’t like it. Everything he does feels like a potential trap, particularly when he says words such as ‘respect’ ‘democratic’ ‘people’. These are just words to push buttons, provoke knee jerk reactions. In other words, not democratic.

But it is increasingly clear that Brexit is not about democracy, it is not about what is best for the country, it is not about cool headed sensible decisions; it is about emotion. If a referendum were held tomorrow what would the result be? I don’t know. Surveys give conflicting answers. It appears that many people think that if Johnson’s deal is agreed Brexit is ‘done’ (another word increasingly used by the pro Leave bunch). This is wrong. Agreeing this deal is just the end of the beginning. The next phase is going to be more intense, more contentious, more dangerous. But the red tops keep exhorting the government to ‘get it done’ ‘let us go’ ‘break the shackles’. No one has been able to explain to me satisfactorily what those ‘shackles’ are, what we would be freed from: frictionless trade? freedom of movement? membership of the biggest trading block? All things I am very happy to keep. Who wouldn’t be?

So no surprise to hear that last Saturday I joined over one million people marching through London to proclaim our desire to remain in the EU.

March!

My journey to the mach was easy and pretty short. Some people had travelled overnight in coaches from all over the UK. This time there were many regional flags, people keen to show it is not just the Metropolitan Elite who is in favour of the EU, but those from Salisbury, Cornwall, Essex (Essex!), Edinburgh, Glasgow, Kent, Cardiff. You get the idea. I didn’t recognise all the flags, and obviously only being in one section of the march I didn’t see all of them, but the White Rose of Yorkshire, flying among posters of Jo Cox, brought a lump to my throat.

Danez Smith

Until this evening I had not heard of Danez Smith. Now I want to buy his book of poetry Don’t Call Us Dead. I want to know more. What a voice. What a poet. What a man.

Enjoy is the wrong word. Listen, be thrilled, be moved, be ashamed, be inspired.

Back to Brexit

You would think that there had been no march on Saturday, no five million plus signatures on a petition asking for Article 50 to be revoked. Europe is talking about it, the world is talking about it, the UK government isn’t. No. The day after the march our esteemed Prime Minister met renowned Brexiteer MPs, people who would be quite happy to leave the EU with no deal. The Prime Minister followed this meeting up with a speech where she spoke about the British People (yep, they’re being evoked again but apparently my birth certificate lies and I am not one of them) and how they would not countenance not leaving the EU. No mention of the march, the petition, the fact that the referendum was advisory and not binding, and had it been binding it would have been declared void because of illegal activity by the Leave campaign.
Not. A. Word.
There’s the usual baloney about respecting the ‘will of the people’ respecting ‘the result of the referendum’. Nothing about respecting those who march peacefully, who follow the rules, who do not threaten civil disruption, public mayhem if this goes ahead, who engage in debate not rhetoric and meaningless slogans.

Remain a Star

By twelve midday, when I was still with my clients, Parliament Square was already awash with banners. Cyclists were circling the square (sic) to the accompaniment of Electric Dreams, a song I have never really liked, but from now on shall listen to with affection. My clients, from the US, were captivated. In particular as we made our way into and across Green Park they were stopping to photograph banners, deriving special pleasure from any deriding Trump. We were supposed to part company at Trafalgar Square, but they stood and watched as marchers moved slowly by, banners and placards held aloft. There were some real corkers, and I am so cross that I forgot to charge my camera battery last night. I’ve got a few pictures on my ‘phone which will have to do.

We all agreed we were witnessing history, I intended to join the march, and I really shouldn’t be surprised to learn they joined in too. Finally they left to get some lunch and I sat by a statue and ate the salad I had brought with me. The woman beside me was German and we chatted. I said I was hoping to meet some neighbours, one of who is also German. Texts suggested they might be some time, then they said they were on Pall Mall, and we fixed a rendezvous by the lions in the square. There was a French couple beside me, and once they had made friendly eye contact a conversation started between us. French is my second language, and it may sound silly, but marching to say I want to remain in the EU, it felt positive to be able to converse with these fellow Europeans in their language.

A Sign of Hope

For some weeks now, due to the bizarre political situation in the UK, I have felt like I am living in a Tom Sharpe novel. You know the ones. He wrote them in the 1980s and most were set in a dysfunctional South Africa. I never expected those scenarios to feel like real life in the second decade of the C21 in this group of islands I call home.
For nearly three years since the ill thought out referendum about the UK’s future relationship with the EU, those of us who voted Remain have been sidelined. The Breat British Public and their Will apparently excludes us and our will. We have marched, we have demonstrated. Parliament has ignored us, despite our numbers. The Electoral Commission has ruled that the Leave campaign broke the rules. Utd all government could find to say was that it was ‘regrettable’ and the referendum result must be respected. The subtext of this was of course that anyone who voted to remain, who had not broken the rules could,in the eloquent phrasing of Mr B Johnson, ‘go whistle’.
Last night, with just nine days to go to the deadline, we seemed to reach a new low. At this rate our government will surely find itself tunnelling through to Australia soon. Faced with the complacent smirk of Mark Francois, a politician whose election to office brings the whole of our system into disrepute, his intellectual capacity being either so well hidden no one has seen it yet, or possibly non-existent, saying that he is quite happy about a no deal exit from the EU, I felt deep despair and helplessness. There is no effective opposition in Parliament, no one offering an alternative. I feel abandoned.
I tried reading my next book group book (Heartburn by Nora Ephron. For such a slim volume it is taking me a very long time to finish it) but my eyes kept sliding from the page.
I turned to Twitter in search of a hashtag game to lighten my mood, and found a petition. This is a screen shot of it from earlier this evening.

March!

Even the media reckon there were around 700,000 people on yesterday’s march. That may well mean there were more. Certainly the streets were full, the mood good. A feeling of solidarity with people you don’t know about a situation that is all wrong.

I’m not saying we all agreed. I am not convinced yet about a second vote though I am slowly moving in that direction. My outrage is with the first vote where we know the rules were broken by the Leave campaign. In my eyes that is enough to suspend the whole process. Carrying on is a slap in the face for democracy, and democracy around the world has had its face slapped a lot in the past few years.

Trafalgar Square

Small Triumphs

Against the brutalities of the world, small triumphs are like anchors, keeping me safe, secure while the waves crash around me: finishing a library book and returning it before the due date; recycling some small electricals; posting a present to a friend whose birthday falls when I’ll be in New Zealand. 

The news continues to broadcast from a world untethered, a world where interrogators arrive in planes with diplomatic immunity, bone saws in their luggage, and the President of the United States expresses a willingness to believe the Saudi Royal family  knows nothing about it. Given that country’s reputation for state control, and the Crown Prince’s hands on actions, are we really to accept that they were so busy watching the Saudi version of Bake Off that they temporarily abdicated that control to persons unknown?