Dear Fellow Citizens
Dear Fellow Citizens,
First of all, as one who has been self-isolating since the 31st of December 2019, I want to thank you.
I've been staying in since then, only seeing one of my family occasionally from the other side of the hall outside my flat; and getting my shopping dropped off by Sainsbury, Waitrose and the Fish People at Shields Road. Excellent service too - the Westminster government dropped businesses right in it way back at the start of the lockdown by not issuing any advice or instructions but most businesses have rallied round. I'm also grateful to Waterstones and Amazon, who keep me supplied with books. I live in a small block of pensioners' flats where there are about a dozen 'shut-ins' and the warden checks on all of us every single day by text, phone or email.
I've left the building once since New Year, ironically to go by taxi to the GP surgery for a blood test, because no one there would come to me.
This is partly my responsibility: I talked my way out of the QEUH on 31 December, after a fortnight of tests and treatment for colitis. I felt better after my "flare-up", I had a course of treatment to follow and I wanted home.
Colitis, like Crohn's disease, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, etc is an immune disorder. It attacks just about any part of the body. In December it attacked my kidneys so I was left with either 17% or 14% kidney function. I don't remember which it was. Right now, it's my joints and the skin on my legs that
are inflamed.
Immune disorders don't kill you. But they leave you open to rogue infections - like Covid-19.
I am, like lots of people, dependent on the rest of you to keep me safe.
I know the sacrifices people make every day: my sis and bro in law haven't seen their grandchildren for weeks, except from the other side of the garden. There are 9 children in my family and we haven't been able to get them all together for months. Not even for birthdays - and there are 5 in May and June. My great niece just turned 12 last Friday. She's going to secondary in August (we hope). She has missed her prom and her secondary induction days. One of our wee guys goes in to P1 in August (we hope) and his grandparents will buy his first school uniform. We're just not sure how that they'll do that. For his big brother it was a big day out, with fittings in a local shop, loads of parcels to carry home and lunch in a local restaurant. My sis in law celebrated her 60th birthday with her grandchildren waving through the window. No hugs.
I had hoped to host a grand party to celebrate all these ' missed' birthdays in our residents' lounge. With a magician for the kids, food and drink for all and music, some time in June. That's looking a bit iffy too.
Of course, everybody else is going through the same experience.
Or, at least, that's what we always assumed. Unless, it turns out, your names are Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings. I apologise to my readers right now because my language is about to go straight down the toilet.
Who the fuck are these people that they think the rules that apply to you and me don't apply to them? I thought sticking to the lockdown rules was pretty well accepted in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and that attitude is reflected in the lower death rates in those jurisdictions. Not so much in England - but at least enough to protect the vulnerable. Now it seems the good old Tory idea - which started with Thatcher - that the law is whatever you can get away with now applies.
Maybe we've all misunderstood the rules of lockdown all along. It's not what you should do. Just what you can be arsed with.
These are not stupid people we're dealing with. They've all been privately and expensively educated. I love the idea that they all seem to attend state primary schools along with the rest of us before being shunted off to expensive boarding schools where, I suppose, they get all the ideas they might have picked up at primary - like equality and fairness - knocked out of them. Sadly, their expensive education also seems to wipe out any sense of democracy.
And pu-lease, don't bother telling me it's up to parents how they educate their kids and the kids don't get a choice. I know that. But it would be good if we could find a way to educate the elite - people who only have money - nae taste, nae class and nae culture - to understand that lots of people aren't born with their privileges and that their insistence on not sharing power means that the contributions of many talented but poor people are lost to our society forever.
That's called empathy. And these people just don't have it.
Watching both Johnson and Cummings on TV today is an education in itself. Cummings addresses the press as 'you guys' because they're his mates. They're all London-based journalists, with one foot in PR and the other in politics. They've known each other for decades. Johnson is part of their wee group too. I hear the Scottish press wasn't allowed in to Cummings's 'briefing'. A few London journalists have also been excluded from Westminster briefings recently with no reason given.So the little world of Westminster gets smaller and smaller. Is there anyone in the media who squirms when they hear this palsy-walsy stuff? There must be. There just aren't enough of them to make a difference.
So what do we do? Well, you know my answer is bound to involve Scotland going for independence.
But, apart from that, could we maybe try grown-up politics? I see people all over Facebook and twitter saying they don't 'like' Boris Johnson or Dominic Cummings. Let's avoid 'celeb-speak', eh? I don't 'like' Madonna. Never have done. I think her music is banal and her exploitation of her sexuality was crass. But it's not about her personally. Maybe we can separate Boris Johnson and his public image: forget that he was a terrible mayor of London. Never mind that he liked to appear on 'Have I Got News For You' and let comedians take the piss out of him.
He's the UK prime minister now. How's he doing? To get an answer to that question, have a look at what he has done during the Covid-19 pandemic. Then think about how the future generation of voters will judge him.
First of all, as one who has been self-isolating since the 31st of December 2019, I want to thank you.
I've been staying in since then, only seeing one of my family occasionally from the other side of the hall outside my flat; and getting my shopping dropped off by Sainsbury, Waitrose and the Fish People at Shields Road. Excellent service too - the Westminster government dropped businesses right in it way back at the start of the lockdown by not issuing any advice or instructions but most businesses have rallied round. I'm also grateful to Waterstones and Amazon, who keep me supplied with books. I live in a small block of pensioners' flats where there are about a dozen 'shut-ins' and the warden checks on all of us every single day by text, phone or email.
I've left the building once since New Year, ironically to go by taxi to the GP surgery for a blood test, because no one there would come to me.
This is partly my responsibility: I talked my way out of the QEUH on 31 December, after a fortnight of tests and treatment for colitis. I felt better after my "flare-up", I had a course of treatment to follow and I wanted home.
Colitis, like Crohn's disease, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, etc is an immune disorder. It attacks just about any part of the body. In December it attacked my kidneys so I was left with either 17% or 14% kidney function. I don't remember which it was. Right now, it's my joints and the skin on my legs that
are inflamed.
Immune disorders don't kill you. But they leave you open to rogue infections - like Covid-19.
I am, like lots of people, dependent on the rest of you to keep me safe.
I know the sacrifices people make every day: my sis and bro in law haven't seen their grandchildren for weeks, except from the other side of the garden. There are 9 children in my family and we haven't been able to get them all together for months. Not even for birthdays - and there are 5 in May and June. My great niece just turned 12 last Friday. She's going to secondary in August (we hope). She has missed her prom and her secondary induction days. One of our wee guys goes in to P1 in August (we hope) and his grandparents will buy his first school uniform. We're just not sure how that they'll do that. For his big brother it was a big day out, with fittings in a local shop, loads of parcels to carry home and lunch in a local restaurant. My sis in law celebrated her 60th birthday with her grandchildren waving through the window. No hugs.
I had hoped to host a grand party to celebrate all these ' missed' birthdays in our residents' lounge. With a magician for the kids, food and drink for all and music, some time in June. That's looking a bit iffy too.
Of course, everybody else is going through the same experience.
Or, at least, that's what we always assumed. Unless, it turns out, your names are Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings. I apologise to my readers right now because my language is about to go straight down the toilet.
Who the fuck are these people that they think the rules that apply to you and me don't apply to them? I thought sticking to the lockdown rules was pretty well accepted in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and that attitude is reflected in the lower death rates in those jurisdictions. Not so much in England - but at least enough to protect the vulnerable. Now it seems the good old Tory idea - which started with Thatcher - that the law is whatever you can get away with now applies.
Maybe we've all misunderstood the rules of lockdown all along. It's not what you should do. Just what you can be arsed with.
These are not stupid people we're dealing with. They've all been privately and expensively educated. I love the idea that they all seem to attend state primary schools along with the rest of us before being shunted off to expensive boarding schools where, I suppose, they get all the ideas they might have picked up at primary - like equality and fairness - knocked out of them. Sadly, their expensive education also seems to wipe out any sense of democracy.
And pu-lease, don't bother telling me it's up to parents how they educate their kids and the kids don't get a choice. I know that. But it would be good if we could find a way to educate the elite - people who only have money - nae taste, nae class and nae culture - to understand that lots of people aren't born with their privileges and that their insistence on not sharing power means that the contributions of many talented but poor people are lost to our society forever.
That's called empathy. And these people just don't have it.
Watching both Johnson and Cummings on TV today is an education in itself. Cummings addresses the press as 'you guys' because they're his mates. They're all London-based journalists, with one foot in PR and the other in politics. They've known each other for decades. Johnson is part of their wee group too. I hear the Scottish press wasn't allowed in to Cummings's 'briefing'. A few London journalists have also been excluded from Westminster briefings recently with no reason given.So the little world of Westminster gets smaller and smaller. Is there anyone in the media who squirms when they hear this palsy-walsy stuff? There must be. There just aren't enough of them to make a difference.
So what do we do? Well, you know my answer is bound to involve Scotland going for independence.
But, apart from that, could we maybe try grown-up politics? I see people all over Facebook and twitter saying they don't 'like' Boris Johnson or Dominic Cummings. Let's avoid 'celeb-speak', eh? I don't 'like' Madonna. Never have done. I think her music is banal and her exploitation of her sexuality was crass. But it's not about her personally. Maybe we can separate Boris Johnson and his public image: forget that he was a terrible mayor of London. Never mind that he liked to appear on 'Have I Got News For You' and let comedians take the piss out of him.
He's the UK prime minister now. How's he doing? To get an answer to that question, have a look at what he has done during the Covid-19 pandemic. Then think about how the future generation of voters will judge him.
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