Bringing the government to account is what happens in a democracy .....
We are well into lockdown mode.
But then for us lockdown is less of a challenge than if we were living on the tenth floor of a tower block.
We have a house which is large by any standards. We have a garden which is large by any standards. Gosh, we even have our own wood with a woodland Chapel.
We have dogs for company and hens for eggs (and in extremis roast chicken).
So by the normal standards of lockdown we are OK.
So it maybe seems a bit grumpy to criticise the Government's handling of the pandemic but with the failure to respond to the outbreak, the complacency, the unpreparedness of the Government, its dismissive response and its sense that somehow we would get through it with a mix of chute pah and British exceptionalism, criticism is necessary.
The back story goes back to the Lib Dem decision to form a coalition with David Cameron (Who? you might well ask) and where is he now?
With George Osborne as Chancellor, Cameron embarked on a programme of austerity that that effectively made the rich richer and the poor a whole lot poorer, whilst steadily and purposefully under funding public services, including and most notably, the NHS.
Who remembers the picture of MP's in the House of Commons cheering the news that the campaign to raise nurses wages had been defeated, who remembers the decision to insist that those training to be nurses had to pay for their own training.
It is hard now to equate those same nurses risking there own lives to save the lives of those caught in the grip of corona virus.
It seems, now that we can assess it quietly and in the privacy of our own homes, that those 11 days in March were critical if we had acted sooner and with some sense of the threat posed by what we are now facing that the Prime Minister might have acted sooner, might have thought twice about shaking peoples hands and might not himself have contracted the virus?
One can only end the paragraph above with a question mark because we will never know. But what we do know is that this pandemic will impact not only on our well being, our social relationships, our health and our wealth it will make us as a society poorer for some years to come.
For some years we have been caught in the middle of a crisis of our own making but it is possibly true now to say that we have to invest at the very least £350M a week into the NHS, applauding on a Thursday night is all very well, but acknowledging the contribution that Doctors and Nurses from Europe, Asia, Africa and India make to our health service is even more necessary because the Brexit effect is to ban many of these people as unwelcome immigrants.
If anything positive is to emerge from this virus it is surely that we can now recognise who the true wealth makers are?
As people are locked down at home, factories are closed, businesses are closed, CEO's of companies are being forced to admit just how and from where there wealth is generated.
As the economy buckles and strains it becomes clearer that Hedge Fund Managers are of less intrinsic worth than delivery drivers, postman, Bin Men, bus and train drivers. It is these jobs which are the weft and woof of the fabric of society and yet, somehow, we have since the 1940's managed to convince ourselves that it is tha people who make money from money, rather than the people who make the goods that are sold for profit, who actually make money, not the people who package and repackage debts and then sell them onwards for obscene profits.
It is perhaps not entirely disconnected that since the virus grounded the planes and cars were parked the weather has noticeably improved. Clearer skies, less smog in Mumbai, beautiful clear pictures of the Himalayas.
So what will we take from all this, what will we learn?
My sense of it is that possibly, just possibly, there will be a new settlement from which a kinder, more generous, more understanding world will emerge.
I recall a photograph of George Osborne sitting in his Land Rover in a disable parking space in a Motorway services, eating a burger.
The degrees of insensitivity, failure of understanding, disdain and the rejection of simple human understanding are hard even now for me to comprehend.
The Government will be called to account, as will Governments across the world, that is only right and fair, but we need to recognise that this has been a long time coming.
The NHS has tested its readiness before ever it was tested by this virus and one finding was that a terrorist attack would stretch response capability but a pandemic could overwhelm the service but that warning like so many was ignored.
But the years of austerity, underfunding of services, taking the eye off the ball with Brexit, personal ambition have all contributed to the wrong people, being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I hope that my sense is right and that a kinder world will emerge because I believe that:
But then for us lockdown is less of a challenge than if we were living on the tenth floor of a tower block.
We have a house which is large by any standards. We have a garden which is large by any standards. Gosh, we even have our own wood with a woodland Chapel.
We have dogs for company and hens for eggs (and in extremis roast chicken).
So by the normal standards of lockdown we are OK.
So it maybe seems a bit grumpy to criticise the Government's handling of the pandemic but with the failure to respond to the outbreak, the complacency, the unpreparedness of the Government, its dismissive response and its sense that somehow we would get through it with a mix of chute pah and British exceptionalism, criticism is necessary.
The back story goes back to the Lib Dem decision to form a coalition with David Cameron (Who? you might well ask) and where is he now?
With George Osborne as Chancellor, Cameron embarked on a programme of austerity that that effectively made the rich richer and the poor a whole lot poorer, whilst steadily and purposefully under funding public services, including and most notably, the NHS.
Who remembers the picture of MP's in the House of Commons cheering the news that the campaign to raise nurses wages had been defeated, who remembers the decision to insist that those training to be nurses had to pay for their own training.
It is hard now to equate those same nurses risking there own lives to save the lives of those caught in the grip of corona virus.
It seems, now that we can assess it quietly and in the privacy of our own homes, that those 11 days in March were critical if we had acted sooner and with some sense of the threat posed by what we are now facing that the Prime Minister might have acted sooner, might have thought twice about shaking peoples hands and might not himself have contracted the virus?
One can only end the paragraph above with a question mark because we will never know. But what we do know is that this pandemic will impact not only on our well being, our social relationships, our health and our wealth it will make us as a society poorer for some years to come.
For some years we have been caught in the middle of a crisis of our own making but it is possibly true now to say that we have to invest at the very least £350M a week into the NHS, applauding on a Thursday night is all very well, but acknowledging the contribution that Doctors and Nurses from Europe, Asia, Africa and India make to our health service is even more necessary because the Brexit effect is to ban many of these people as unwelcome immigrants.
If anything positive is to emerge from this virus it is surely that we can now recognise who the true wealth makers are?
As people are locked down at home, factories are closed, businesses are closed, CEO's of companies are being forced to admit just how and from where there wealth is generated.
As the economy buckles and strains it becomes clearer that Hedge Fund Managers are of less intrinsic worth than delivery drivers, postman, Bin Men, bus and train drivers. It is these jobs which are the weft and woof of the fabric of society and yet, somehow, we have since the 1940's managed to convince ourselves that it is tha people who make money from money, rather than the people who make the goods that are sold for profit, who actually make money, not the people who package and repackage debts and then sell them onwards for obscene profits.
It is perhaps not entirely disconnected that since the virus grounded the planes and cars were parked the weather has noticeably improved. Clearer skies, less smog in Mumbai, beautiful clear pictures of the Himalayas.
So what will we take from all this, what will we learn?
My sense of it is that possibly, just possibly, there will be a new settlement from which a kinder, more generous, more understanding world will emerge.
I recall a photograph of George Osborne sitting in his Land Rover in a disable parking space in a Motorway services, eating a burger.
The degrees of insensitivity, failure of understanding, disdain and the rejection of simple human understanding are hard even now for me to comprehend.
The Government will be called to account, as will Governments across the world, that is only right and fair, but we need to recognise that this has been a long time coming.
The NHS has tested its readiness before ever it was tested by this virus and one finding was that a terrorist attack would stretch response capability but a pandemic could overwhelm the service but that warning like so many was ignored.
But the years of austerity, underfunding of services, taking the eye off the ball with Brexit, personal ambition have all contributed to the wrong people, being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I hope that my sense is right and that a kinder world will emerge because I believe that:
Love never fails
Even in the darkest moments, love gives hope.
Love compels us to fight against coronavirus alongside our sisters and brothers living in poverty.
Love compels us to stand together with our neighbours near and far.
Love compels us to give and act as one.
Now, it is clear that our futures are bound together more tightly than ever before.
As we pray in our individual homes – around the nation and around the world – we are united.
So, let us pause and find a moment of peace, as we lift up our hearts.
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