Posted 8th May 2020
Avant-propos
The blog here following was in fact written, and ready to roll, over a week ago, but its transmission was thwarted, for reasons of personal technological illiteracy: an impasse at last negotiated thanks to expert intervention. After the announcement by Boris Johnson last Sunday evening, however, both the situation per se of which I write, and the judgement expressed of its management ‒ and managers ‒ have radically changed: and so I wondered if I should not just ‘pull’ the piece. But I’ve decided to let it go as written, as its central thesis is barely affected ‒ and to discuss the changed scenario in (probably) my next letter …
No-Dogge‒ not, as the more astute of his readers may possibly have suspected, the name as it appears on this chronicler’s birth certificate, but (as he hopes) a sufficiently plausible nom de guerre ‒ had originally intended to launch this blog with some prolonged and quite furious barking on one or two subjects that exercised him. But with his attention ‒ largely ‒ appropriated, like that of his fellow-countrymen, by the cruel and insidious disease now scything its way through our society, it would seem somehow evasive wholly to ignore the issue of the hour. A synoptic appraisement of the present situation being, I frankly avow, quite beyond my competence, I shall confine myself to just one or two reflections. And the first of these concerns the debate, not just in the current transmissions of the commentariat, but, apparently, inside the Cabinet itself, as to the desirable duration of the existent shut-down.
The question: Whether to attempt to resume ‘normal life’ as soon as may be possible, or to delay the transition until, unmistakably, the contagion has been substantially quenched? … And I believe that the terms ‘hawk’ and ‘dove’ have been revived to characterize the two persuasions: the former being sustained in the Cabinet by, allegedly, the Foreign Secretary and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the latter by the Minister of Health and the Minister for the Cabinet Office. Of course it is of limited utility to speak on this matter in the abstract; any concrete decision will have to be taken in the light of concrete events: but one will still then depend on ‒ what I can only call, one’s philosophy.
The first accipitrine intervention I recall was that of the erstwhile Supreme Court Judge, Jonathan Sumption, quite shortly after the present ‘lock-down’ measures were introduced. These were, in Lord Sumption’s opinion, an oppressive and intolerable interference with the chartered liberty of all free-born Englishmen. And not that only: but the economy would buckle, the price of protecting the old would be the penalization of the young, and the ‒ economic ‒ consequence of an exclusive concern with saving lives now would be a delayed and possibly more grievous toll in the future. ‒ A thesis not a million miles dissimilar seems to be that maintained by President Donald Trump.
It is, I have to say, a thesis to which No-Dogge finds himself unable to subscribe. One surely must, in times like these, avail oneself of whatever ethical guidance one can find ‒ or remember. Orthodox Judaism, classical Daoism, Catholic Christianity ‒ to search no further ‒ all place an absolute and unconditional value on the safeguarding and prolonging of human life. And while one might, perhaps, repugn at the bedrock doctrine of one great religion, to repudiate what is iterated by all is, I would suggest, decidedly hubristic. And knowingly to sacrifice savable life in the present for a speculative and contingent saving of life in the future is to arrogate to oneself an indefensible power of judgment. To repair the economy two virtues will be necessary: resourcefulness ‒ or, more simply, intelligence; and good will ‒ to be manifested, most notably, in the dispensing of social justice: and although we have not hitherto been exactly drowning in either, they are tools which, if applied, remain powerful and viable. Meanwhile, first things first: let us as far as possible suppress the pestilence, and ‒ to put it crudely ‒ worry about the economy afterwards. While imputing no ill will to its partisans, the contrary policy strikes me as tainted with a tincture ‒ just a tincture ‒ of fascism.
In fact, reluctant as I am to say one word in commendation or defence of our present government ‒ and I confidently promise never to do so again ‒ I have to say that, on this one specific question, I believe that they are right and their critics are wrong. I would even go so far ‒ on, I frantically repeat, this one sole issue ‒ as to sympathize with the exasperation the government has expressed with its questioners: these largely composed of bright-eyed journalists, and politicians of a generally right-wing persuasion. And from such surveys as have been possible, the bulk of the British people seem also to be showing greater wisdom and patience ‒ and a juster sense of priorities ‒ than their (generally) economic betters. It is, indeed, they who will bear the brunt of the inevitable recession to come, but it would seem that they prefer to maximize the chances that they and their families should remain alive to do so.
I note a curious parallel. Chester Wilmot, in ‘The Struggle for Europe’, writes of the difference in policy between the American and British High Commands on the Western Front in the Second World War. The British ‒ more mindful perhaps then their confrères of their three-quarters of a million dead in the First World War ‒ preferred (there were exceptions, but generally) to proceed more deliberately and with minimized casualties, whereas the Americans wanted to get their troops home as soon as possible, even if this meant fewer of them eventually doing so. ‒ No chauvinist I, I yet approve the British policy. And does one not, perhaps, see a similar divergence of temperament, of philosophy, in the policies pursued in the present common battle, between the British authorities and those of President Trump and his court?
Before closing these reflections, it does occur to me that I might seem to be too easily disregarding the difficulties and frustration imposed on people by a more protracted lock-down: and above all, in respect of its consequences for two particularly vulnerable constituencies. (I say nothing in this short article of the scandal ‒ that is, I think, the word ‒ of what has been allowed to happen in our care homes. That would require a whole long, sad essay to itself: and, appalling as it is, the considerations there at issue are different from those addressed in this present.)
The first of the constituencies I have in mind are those enduring domestic abuse. I have ‒ of course I have ‒ no easy answer. But what is not an answer to this depravity is to lift the present restrictions prematurely, adversely affecting everyone, and merely affording a respite or mitigation of the intolerable situation in which these poor women ‒ and a handful of similarly circumstanced men ‒ find themselves. More resources are indicated. Indeed, ‘throwing money’ at the problem will not solve it. But it would certainly help.
The second constituency who are excessively vulnerable in this time of plague, are prisoners. And what is to be said about the state of our prisons? There exist indeed a minority of prisoners ‒ and others ‒ who, in my opinion, need and deserve to be imprisoned for a very long time; but even these must be accorded standards of decency. The conditions in which many are kept are, however, beyond disgusting. I here say nothing of the utterly demoralizing effect on the prison officers charged with administering these degrading régimes. It is, indeed, a shameful fact that it is more than a century since a truly radical programme of penal reform was undertaken ‒ by Winston Churchill: who, in the mere twenty months in which he was Home Secretary, during the pre-First World War Liberal Coalition, did more to humanize prison conditions in Britain than any ‒ than every ‒ Home Secretary since. And today, in this present crisis, the consequences of the filth, the overcrowding … are posing a logistical problem for ‘the authorities’ that they seem hard put to contain. But the state of our prisons ‒ for now briefly spotlighted ‒ makes it impossible to categorize our country as more than semi-civilized.
I have, I am sure you will agree, already written more than enough for this opening salvo. Next time, I will try and lighten the tone a little. Meanwhile, to my readers ‒ if I have any ‒ I send my wishes for their continued good health and a reminder to wash their hands while singing both verses of ‘Land of Hope and Glory’.
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