Which lockdown personality are you? Yes, I understand this is The Irish News, a paper of record, and not one of those terrible quizzes that woman you used to work with keeps posting on Facebook, but bear with me.
If you’re one of a handful of Tory ministers, senior members of the party or major Conservative donors, is the answer?
a) the lockdown is killing more people than the virus
b) the public (my companies) can’t take much more of this
c) social distancing will bankrupt the country
d) I gave £1 million to the Conservative Party and all I got was a drop in my share prices
e) all of the above
News that several billionaire Conservative donors want the lockdown to end was hardly surprising. The people who can generally afford to take a hit are those who seem most keen to get the rest of us back to shops, factories and offices. They won’t necessarily have to be within six feet of us plebs. Of course this has all been couched in concern for the health and wealth of the nation. They’re only thinking of us, you see.
Never mind warnings that 100,000 in the UK could die of coronavirus this year if the lockdown is lifted too soon. In a strictly profit and loss mindset, you can stand to lose tens of thousands of people and overwhelm the health service rather than hurt major businesses.
As commentator and “progressive eugenics” fan Toby Young wrote several weeks ago: “Like a growing number of people, I’m beginning to suspect the government has overreacted to the coronavirus crisis”. Who these people actually are was not spelt out.
His assertion that spending “£350 billion to prolong the lives of a few hundred thousand mostly elderly people is an irresponsible use of taxpayers’ money” came straight out of Animal Farm. Clearly it was entirely right for Napoleon to send Boxer to the knacker’s yard after he’d helped to drive out farmer Jones and build the windmill. Surely he’d served his proper purpose - to work until he almost died and then be discarded?
Boxer’s maxim “I will work harder” was intended to be deeply pathetic, in the true sense of the word, not something to emulate.
The sight of several very elderly people completing physical challenges to raise money for the health service hasn’t been heart-warming. It’s been disturbing.
It was certainly an achievement for 99-year-old former army captain Tom Moore to raise £29 million by walking 100 lengths of his garden.
And 90-year-old Margaret Payne’s attempt to climb the equivalent of Scottish mountain Suilven by walking up and down her stairs 282 times has already raised more than £300,000.
But neither of them should have felt it needful to carry out feats of endurance. In fact, I’m slightly worried that showing any physical ability at all will convince some blue-sky thinker in the government that instead of pensioners being encouraged to stay indoors, they should be mobilised to pick fruit or take part in the wheat harvest like latter-day serfs.
Both Ms Payne and Mr Moore lived through a world war. In Mr Moore’s case, he also fought in one. The taxes both paid throughout their working lives went towards our free healthcare system. They really don’t need to do any more.
Not so billionaire Sir Richard Branson, whose appeal for a £500million taxpayer-funded bailout for his airline, despite not having paid income tax in the UK for more than 10 years, was rightly criticised.
Even his brave offer to mortgage the £80 million Necker Island, his private Caribbean retreat, didn’t raise much sympathy. But I suppose one of the side-effects of accruing enormous wealth is a corresponding drop in self-awareness.
A decent system of taxation, with the Bransons of this world paying UK income tax, should be able to support the health service without near-centenarians feeling that they must step in. I’m still to be convinced that a post-lockdown world, whenever that will come, will see much of a change in our political landscape. But perhaps the thought of years of massive national debt will encourage the government to rethink its approach to taxing those best able to afford it.
