Beginning to See the Light: ‘This is not a lockdown, no, no….’

 

 

‘I’m going over to the other side

I’m happy to have not to have not..’

 

This lockdown feels vastly different to last March, people compliance has dropped considerably, e.g., A survey by the ‘Teacher Tapp’ app found that 1 in 6 primary schools in England reported that 30% or more of their normal roll was attending, far more than in the first week of the March lockdown – writes Philip Gilbert

 
More than 300 schools said at least half of all their pupils attended in person. In the March lockdown, 72% of primary schools had fewer than 10% of their pupils attending; this year, only 17% of primaries had below 10% attendance.

Rebecca Allen, a professor of education at the University of Brighton and chief analyst at Teacher Tapp, said: ‘The much higher number of children attending primary schools each day during this lockdown will make it more difficult to reduce the rate of transmission. This, in turn, may mean that schools will need to stay closed for longer, thus delaying the speed with which we can get other children back to school.’

The reality is that many continue to interpret the government’s strict ‘stay at home’ message as liberally as they can. According to psychological experts, erosion of trust in the government’s messages is perhaps the biggest contributory factor towards people bending the rules as much as they can.
 

erosion of trust in the government’s messages is perhaps the biggest contributory factor

 
Paul Netherton, Devon and Cornwall’s deputy chief constable, told BBC Breakfast, ‘What is happening is people are beginning to flout the rules, they are beginning to think, ‘How can I get away with the rules?’’

According to Patricia Riddell, professor of applied neuroscience at Reading University, the government’s already difficult task of persuading us, as social animals, to do something we don’t want to do has been severely undermined by constant U-turns, mixed messaging and the ‘Dominic Cummings effect’.

People had to understand the ‘value’ in adhering to rules, said Riddell. ‘their behaviour is not matching the value that they are trying to instil in us, then people are just going to think, ‘Well why should we be setting a higher personal value than you’re prepared to demonstrate?’’

The government was, she said, failing at ‘reaching people’s personal values’.

Mixed messaging, such as allowing builders into your home, but not your mother, had also led to a more liberal interpretation and ‘finding ways to break the rules’.
 

why should we be setting a higher personal value than you’re prepared to demonstrate?

 
She added: ‘There have been so many U-turns that I think [the government] has lost credibility.

Dr Sophie King-Hill, a senior fellow at the Health Services Management Centre at the University of Birmingham, also pointed to erosion of trust in the government’s messages, particularly due to the 11th-hour U-turns, including over school closures, as leading to rule flexing. The ‘we’re all in this together’ sentiment had been destroyed by the tier system, she said.

‘What has happened is it has made people more covert, so they get cleverer at breaking the rules, and it becomes about that dichotomy, rather than about the pressure on the health system,’ she said. The mantra ‘save the NHS’ had been lost.
 

‘he waits to see the way the crowd is running and then dashes in front’

 
The result of all this appears to be a form ‘numbness’, we have become immune to the fact that many of the deaths have been the result of incompetence. SAGE have said thousands of lives would have been saved with an early March lockdown. There is the summer photo of maskless Rishi Sunak serving food to customers taking his ‘bribes’ to mingle in restaurants.

This was repeated by the government in September, as they dithered, delayed, and deferred to their lunatic libertarian fringe. Last September, Michael Heseltine described Johnson’s leadership style: ‘he waits to see the way the crowd is running and then dashes in front’.

Whist the pandemic exposed the fact that 1.3 million children have no access to laptops and wi-fi after nine months of missed schooling, and it took a footballer to highlight that children were going unfed, the electorate is slow to accept the facts. Opinium polling for Compassion in Politics shows that:
 

• 50% think that poverty is the result of the system,
• 24% think it’s the fault of the individual,
• 66% think benefits should cover the cost of food, housing, and bills.

 
Ipsos Mori finds only 59% support keeping the £20 extra on universal credit after April.

And for those red-blooded capitalists who probably fall into the 24% who think that child poverty is the fault of the individual, this week’s annual Financial Times survey of 90 leading economists shows Britain tops the EU charts for infections and deaths, and our economy will be slowest to return to pre-pandemic levels, due to C-19 and Brexit mismanagement.

Unsurprisingly, the public are losing confidence in Johnson, an Opinium poll for the Observer this weekend showed that:
 

• 43% thought he should resign, while 40% said that he should remain as leader,
• 87% of Conservative voters think Johnson should stay on as leader, 7% thinking he should resign,
• 72% think the government has not acted fast enough, ,
• 64% said they would prefer a government who quickly puts lockdown measures in-place,
• Only 25% said they would prefer a government who tries not to put lockdown measures in-place,

 
And just when you thought it was over, there’s Brexit! It appears that Johnson’s ‘jumbo’ Brexit deal which guarantees tariff-free trade with the EU isn’t quite that.

Some EU retailers are not selling into Britain because they would have to register in the UK for VAT, while other high street names including Marks & Spencer are finding that those goods not largely made in Britain could indeed be subject to tariffs. The devil is in the detail.

Under the Brexit deal a product will attract tariffs if more than 40% of its pre-finished value is neither of British nor EU origin, e.g., from Japan.

The cost of new paperwork, including customs declarations required on goods being traded in both directions, is another consideration, as is the £150-a-time health certificate require on all consignments of food.

And from Brexit and nationalism, we inevitably now turn to the disturbing political situation in America. Many supporters of Brexit were also enthusiastic supporters of Trump, now, belatedly, they are realising he is a monster.

The Spectator is, I am told, a ‘respectable centre-right publication’, who’s summer party is attended by senior politicians from both parties, and BBC journalists. It also publishes columns bemoaning there is ‘not nearly enough Islamophobia within the Tory party’.

Last week its editor, Fraser Nelson wrote a column entitled ‘Trump’s final act was a betrayal of the people who voted for him.’

Was it? A YouGov poll showed more Republican voters backed the storming of the Capitol than opposed it.

3-years ago Nelson wrote a column headlined ‘A new, more reasonable Donald Trump presidency might just be on the way’.

The Spectator provided more positive coverage to Trump and ‘Trumpism’ than any other British publication, headlines included, ‘The intelligent case for voting Trump’; ‘Trump will be much, much better for Britain’; ‘Donald Trump’s victory marks the death of liberalism’.
 

‘Can you really blame Trump for refusing to accept the election result?’

 
Whilst last week’s disgraceful scenes were triggered by Trump’s baseless claims that the election was ‘stolen’ from him, in November, the Spectator published articles such as ‘Trump is right not to concede’, and ‘Can you really blame Trump for refusing to accept the election result?’

Then there is former Tory MEP Daniel Hannan, who, 4-months ago, wrote, ‘Trump’s flaws are many, but he’d be better for Britain than Biden’. He also tweeted the phoney narrative that it was a violent left who were the real threat. ‘God knows I’m no fan of Trump,’ but is it really disgruntled Republicans that people are boarding up their shops against?’

Also lauding Trump was Douglas Murray, one of the most successful right-wing authors of our age, who once demanded that ‘conditions for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board’. He denounced Muslims as a ‘demographic timebomb’ and suggested London had become a foreign country because in 23 out of its 33 boroughs, ‘‘white Britons’ are now in a minority’. In a Telegraph column in August headlined ‘It’s in the UK’s national interest for Trump to triumph’, Murray accepted the president had flaws – among which he included boastfulness and ‘devotion to exaggeration’, but, not Islamophobia, racism or describing neo-Nazis as ‘very fine people’.

People have scoffed at commentators such as me, who recognised that Trump represented a serious incipient fascist threat. For British right-wingers who denied or downplayed that threat, whilst they may have regarded him as vulgar, they sympathised with his political message.

After last week’s shameful events it comes as no surprise that Trump is once again facing impeachment.

Whilst this demonstrates that America is ashamed of him, his behaviour, and that they are moving-on, I believe it is a mistake. Impeachment will deflect attention from Joe Biden’s transition into office and create a martyr for the cause.
 

if Trump runs again it will be because of major systemic changes rendering his impeachment invalid

 
In addition, whilst it would be stop him running for President again, that assumes the current rules and constitution still stands. I would suggest that if Trump runs again it will be because of major systemic changes rendering his impeachment invalid.

Despite failing to be re-elected Trump won close to 74 million votes, 11 million more than in 2016. His failings might be legion, but he became more popular in office with his voters and gained support among black and Latino voters. These are indisputable facts, and it remains to be seen what effects last week’s events will have on his level of support.

Trumps victory in 2016 was based on his ambition to ‘drain the swamp’ of federal power, overseas alliances, and political insiders. In last year’s election, Trump portrayed his cause as incomplete, and persuaded almost half of America that its ruling class was still out to ‘get’ him. An extra 11 million Americans voted to give him another try.

Impeachment runs the risk of being viewed as a vendetta against his cause and its 74 million supporters. Rightly or wrongly these people admire Trump’s extremism and eccentricity, seeing him as their spokesman. Many are non-college-educated Americans who feel failed by those in power, those who Hillary Clinton in 2016 called a ‘basket of deplorables’.
 

Many are non-college-educated Americans who feel failed by those in power

 
Many of these are now further disillusioned, and there is a very real risk they will be drawn into even more extreme right-wing groups, with experts fearing this could lead to more violence in rallies scheduled around Joe Biden’s inauguration.

Reports have detailed FBI warnings about possible violence at state capitols and in Washington in the run-up to the inauguration which will now take place amid increases in security and the presence of thousands of National Guard troops.

Many Trump supporters continued to express a desire for violent reprisals on those they saw as the president’s adversaries. On Monday morning, one wrote on Telegram that Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi ‘presents a clear and present danger to the safety of the nation. She is guilty of treason and should be removed from power immediately, by any means necessary.’

Already several Twitter accounts, aside from Trump’s own have been closed on the grounds of inciting violence, and the right-wing social media website ‘Parler’ has been shuttered.

However, ex-members of the Parler service formed ad hoc groups on other platforms with lax or non-existent moderation. On Telegram, a ‘Parler Lifeboat’ group had over 15,000 members by Monday morning, with one user promising that Biden’s inauguration, and presidential term, would be watched by ‘8 million hunters AKA snipers’. Other telegram users were raising the prospect of protracted, armed struggle against the US government.

Whatever the outcome we must learn from this and understand what has pushed people to these drastic actions.

The erosion of American democracy has multiple causes, inequality, racism, distrust of institutions, polarisation, media, social media, that predate Trump and will survive him. When Joe Biden is sworn in as the 46th president, he will be the 45^th white, male president.
 

Automation, globalisation and the 2008 financial crisis devastated many communities and fuelled a sense of injustice and anger at elites

 
America is a different country post-Reagan who actively sowed distrust in government for political ends and slashed taxes for the rich in ways that explain today’s brutal inequality. Automation, globalisation and the 2008 financial crisis devastated many communities and fuelled a sense of injustice and anger at elites.

Citizens United, a 2010 ruling by the supreme court removed many limitations on outside groups spending money to shape elections, tilting political influence towards wealthy donors, corporations, and special interests.

The election of Barack Obama, America’s first Black president, led to a racist backlash evidenced by the conservative Tea Party movement and Trump’s entry into politics as a ‘birther’ questioning whether Obama had in fact been born in Kenya and was therefore ineligible.

In 2015 Trump served up a nationalist, nativist message that promised to build a border wall to keep Mexicans out and make America great again.
 

Just 60% of Americans, including 23% of Republicans, believe Biden’s victory was legitimate

 
Wednesday’s insurrection at the Capitol by a mostly white crowd, which was free of the heavy-handed security meted out to Black Lives Matter protesters, felt like the ultimate expression of white rage.

Their anger is worsened by the fact that America is going through a historic generational change, the percentage of whites in the electorate has declined from 89% in 1980 to about 68% in 2020. Trump tapped the frustration of less well-educated whites. ⁽¹⁾

The electoral system also has much to answer for. Republican presidential candidates have won the national popular vote only once in the last 32-years, winning the presidency via the electoral college. The Senate, where big and small states have an equal voice, is unrepresentative of the population.

Gerrymandering has turned blue states bluer, and red states redder. The loudest and most extreme voices are often rewarded in party primaries; hence QAnon conspiracy theorists who embrace Trump have prospered in Republican circles.

Electoral representation endorses the stark polarisation across class, race, geography, and educational achievement ^(2):
 

• Biden’s 2020 election-winning base in 509 counties encompasses 71% of America’s economic activity,
• while Trump’s losing base of 2,547 counties represents just 29% of the economy,

 
Just 60% of Americans, including 23% of Republicans, believe Biden’s victory was legitimate. ⁽³⁾

Right-wing nationalism and populism/fascism is on the march; Trumpism will not suddenly vanish in the US and will retain its advocates elsewhere, the UK included.

Remember, ‘when America sneezes, the world catches a cold.’
 

‘All the way from Washington

Her bread-winner begs off the bathroom floor

We live for just these twenty years

Do we have to die for the fifty more?’

 
Notes:
 

1. Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota
2. Brookings Institution thinktank.
3. Quinnipiac University poll

 
The second ‘Beginning to see the light’ column feels subtly different, which is a conscious attempt by Philip to have the column ‘taken more seriously; it makes relevant points, and has been proven to be accurate in its assessment of situations’.

He’ll get no quarrel here – a large proportion of this week’s copy is devoted to recent events in the US; when he first drew parallels between the Trump regime and the politics of 1930’s Germany, some may have considered Philip to have indulged in rather fanciful exaggeration to make his point.

However, those watching a QAnon shaman standing cheek by jowl with a good ol’ boy in an ‘Auschwitz STAFF’ t-shirt in a trashed Capitol building may have been moved to reassess; as it now transpires that a number of the rioters were off-duty police officers or ex-military, Philip serves up the rather shocking statistic that just 60% of Americans believe that Joe Biden’s election was legitimate.  

Let’s hope he’s wrong in believing that this is the start of something rather than the end of an inglorious chapter in US history, but there is every reason to believe that the 74m who put their ‘signature’ next to Trump will not go quietly.

So seriously is the threat being taken that United, Delta and American are even preventing passengers from taking guns on flights into DC; other destinations remain just fine. 

Closer to home and it’s FUBAR on all fronts as the devil in the detail of the Brexit deal comes to the fore, people lose any respect for the opaque, clumsy lockdown rules, the UK races to the top of the Grim Reaper’s charts and key party donors are awarded contracts to send out ‘hampers’ comprising a carrot, frozen loaf and packet of biscuits at a cost of just £30 each to the taxpayer.

A new, virulent strain of the virus – the Brazilian – is sending shivers around the globe, but so wedded is Grant ‘Two Planes’ Shapps to the aviation industry that, inexplicably, airports remain open; he is however reported to be planning a ban on pubic topiary.

Given that it is now illegal to travel five miles to exercise and imbibe a peppermint infusion, the lyric competition in its previous form has been replaced and Philip will now book-end his column with two tracks to be identified for entertainment value alone; but then he’s treated us to a couple of belters – PiL and ‘This is not a love song’ and David Bowie’s ‘Young Americans’.

One thing’s for sure, Philip is not going to go short of material – it’s thick and fast either side of the Pond; there’s no doubting the column’s credentials as serious, well-researched journalism and we look forward to watching things evolve, whilst looking through our fingers in the hope some of the more frightening prognoses do not come to pass. However, he’s got some previous.

Meantime, in response to news that supply problems were hampering the roll out of the vaccine,  Pfizer chiefs said ‘we predict a riot’.

I’ll get my coat.
 

 

Philip Gilbert is a city-based corporate financier, and former investment banker.

Philip is a great believer in meritocracy, and in the belief that if you want something enough you can make it happen. These beliefs were formed in his formative years, of the late 1970s and 80s