Corona Diaries day 8

D-day war veteran, Harry Billinge was on local TV last night. He’s the sort of chap we all need to listen to and he is a tireless charity campaigner, even at the ripe age of 94.

Asked about the trials of self-isolation he replied simply, 

“If you can’t live with yourself, you can’t live with anybody.“ 

He is someone who knows what it’s like to live through a real war and to see your friends senselessly killed. It’s always worth listening to his interviews. What a guy! 

The news also also told us that the NHS has only 8,000 ventilators and could need up to 30,000 to cope with peak demand. However, the Formula One engine manufacturer, Mercedes, has teamed up with UCL engineers in London to design a breathing aid for Coronavirus patients, a development that could dramatically reduce the need for ventilators. Apparently they can produce the Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) device, which was re-engineered from an existing machine in fewer than 100 hours, at a rate of one thousand a day. Good news indeed. 

Necessity is the mother of invention, I always say. Like the course of a river or blood-rich capillaries, we always find a way. 

I’m sure the economy will be a much leaner version of itself than it was before and I hope we come to see that doing  business with or being dependent on rogue states is not such a good idea after all. We should
clean up our own house too. 

I had terrible nightmares last night. In one, Jeremy Corbyn, wearing that narrow eyed look of sincerity that he never quite pulls off, was addressing us from the TV screen, in front of a pair of heavy red curtains. To my mind he just looks like someone suffering with a strangulated testicle or a touch of gout. 

“As your Tsar,” he began. 

I sat bolt upright, entangled  in a sweat-drenched duvet, relieved not to hear what horrors he was about to inflict on the nation. 

A nationalised system of public toilets perhaps, with a cubicle for each of the 250 new genders, and one more for the ‘don’t know’s.’

Or even the indoctrination of all schools and universities about the evils of western colonialism and white privilege and the removal of William Shakespeare from the curriculum? Actually- scrub that – I think they’ve already done that one. 

The BBC will now sing The Red Flag at the commencement of every programme, backed by the twin smiling images of our own Tsar Jeremy and Xi Jinping.  The immaculate Gary Lineker will read the quarter-hourly propaganda bulletins, between re-runs of Match of the Day, to pacify the masses.

Anyway, there are already some, on the left, in the land of daydream, who are suggesting a rerun of the December election, due to these ‘unprecedented times.’  

I have two intelligent young people in my own family who have recently been through the British education system. Whilst it is indeed, stuffed to the gunnels with left leaning idealists, who have never had a job in the real world, my two do at least have the nouse to see the flaws and question what they are taught. 

I would never force my own views or beliefs on them and we often have some good discussions and debate. My only advice would be to read as widely as possible, think it through and make up your own mind. 

You may, by now, have some inkling of my own political views. I’m not sure that they have as much to do with politics as they do with my understanding of human nature. 

And, please don’t misunderstand me. I’m acutely aware of the imperfections of our democracy and in our nation. I’m as angry as the next man about corporate and individual greed and injustice.  By injustice, I mean the real stuff, not that someone refused to call you by your chosen pronouns and it hurt your feelings, or they refused to celebrate your sexuality by painting their nails with rainbows and baking you a cake. I wouldn’t dream of forcing you to worship at my altar so kindly respect my choice not to worship at yours.
I suspect there are many more interesting things that define you than your sexuality or pronouns. I’m certain there will be a character in there too. Perhaps a shared sense of humour or a passion for reading. A love of dogs or the sea. It would be nice to get to know one another from a different standpoint. 

But even these things pale into insignificance against the prospect of giving free reign to a system of Marxism that denies the rights, value and dignity of the individual and that ‘justified’ the murder of 100 million people in the last century. 

I know people and what they’re like with a little bit of power in their hands. 

And the most powerful seem to be the ones who wield their perceived states of victimhood like a sledge hammer to deny the rights of others to disagree with you or even ignore you. 

There is much talk in the media of overzealous policing and the gross affront to our rights of the new emergency legislation. There are calls to save our economy, lest even more lives are lost in the long run. These things are up for debate in our free society and rightly so. 

We must understand though, that in policing terms, the protection of life overrides all other rights. This legislation is temporary and the police must, as always, use their powers sparingly and in the spirit of the law. 

Every police officer I know, will be only too glad when these measures are no longer necessary and they can return to  policing by consent, with the support of the public of whom they are a part. The police are the public and the public are the police. It’s a principle Sir Robert Peel recognised as an important one and it has served us pretty well so far. 

So, everyone who is concerned about a police state, fear not. They haven’t got the will or the numbers anyway. 

In some other good news, my son, after being sacked from his temporary job, before the chancellor announced financial support measures, has been told he will receive 80% of his pay from the agency. 

My nephew and his wife are in receipt of full pay, whilst in lockdown at home. 

My daughter’s boyfriend is self-employed and will have to wait until June for the income support scheme to kick in, but has already applied for a mortgage break. 

I don’t think the government could have done much more. Corbyn is saying “I told you so,” without admitting that it might not do our economy much good in the process and would probably not be a good peace-time policy. I do wonder about the quality of some of our politicians and their ability to think things through sometimes. 

A friend rang Michelle to see how we are doing. She knows I have cancer and asked after me. 

She’s a cleaner at the local hospital and came out of retirement to help the NHS through the crisis. She’s completely exhausted and one of the unsung heroines in my book. I hope she does get a medal and a bonus when the dust settles on this pandemic. She thoroughly deserves it. 

Another friend is a Doctor at the same hospital. I pray that God will give her the strength to get through it too. You all have my unwavering admiration. 

Our neighbourhood What’sApp group is now in full swing. Whenever a neighbour goes shopping they ask if anyone needs anything. Food parcels are left in the road for collection and bills settled promptly. The local vicar is doing similar collections for the local food bank and all of us, bar none, have signed up to share what we have with those who have not.  It brings a lump to the throat. I didn’t think we had much of a community before but everyone seems to be pulling together at last in the hour of need. 

Marxist regimes deliberately destroy a sense of belonging and community and thrive on division and suspicion. It might benefit globalisation but does nothing for quality of life and the truly important things in life that bind us together and make it a world worth living in. We’ve already agreed that we’re going to have a great big street party when all this is over.