by Guy de la Bédoyère
Before we can undo Lockdown Land we must try to understand why it has proved so appealing to so many people.
I’ve done a number of jobs over the last 40 years, but by far and away the most full-on was retraining as a secondary school teacher at the age of 49. In some ways it was a superb experience, but in other ways it was a nightmare. The job was never done – there was always something else. Whatever one did it was never quite good enough. Targets were replaced by new targets. In short, it was like trying to climb up a glass cliff with melted butter in my hands.
In the event I lasted nine years, but for much of that time I was acutely conscious that had anything happened – like an accident – to take me out of work for several weeks or months, I’d almost certainly never be able to climb back on the travellator and resume my duties.
That was a job in education, but it could be matched by so many other jobs where the sheer momentum is what keeps it going: from the commuting, right down to worrying at the weekends, the relentless and merciless pressure of performance management and the status that becomes tied up one with one’s persona. The ceaseless frenzy becomes an end in itself and people become lost within it.
Many years before, I worked at the BBC. I was only 26 when I witnessed a decisive moment. A manager whom everyone feared and who ruled the place retired. We were all invited to pop in one morning for a drink and snacks to say goodbye. Her office had one large desk and three smaller ones for her underlings. She went at lunchtime. That afternoon I went back for some admin reason. Her desk had gone and the other three had been rearranged in such a way it was impossible to see how there had ever been room for hers. Her irrelevance had been instantaneous. I was transfixed by this and decided then that I would never seek or bother with promotion in the workplace. I have, I am happy to say, been very successful in that endeavour.
As it happens, I left teaching of my own accord in 2016 to resume freelance writing and lecturing on a part-time basis to lead into retirement. It was a fascinating experience to walk out that midsummer morning. All the responsibility and even relevance evaporated in a trice.
And that’s pretty much what happened to most of Britain in late March 2020. In a development no-one in SAGE or the government anticipated, large numbers of Britons were led into a delusional world of premature retirement. The spell was broken. The bubble burst. Status at work dissipated. No more clean shirts on Sunday night. People have discovered that the roof didn’t fall in when they were no longer at work, thrashing themselves to be indispensable.
Every dynamic of the workplaces was changed. The sheer force of habit was disrupted and everyone was led inadvertently through a door into what Fate decreed would be an unnaturally early summer that has seemed like one from childhood. A headteacher friend of mine says it has already become clear that some of his staff have enjoyed the lockdown so much they will undoubtedly struggle to go back to work in any capacity, let alone having to adapt all their working practices to the so-called “new normal”.
This is easy to understand when it involves people who have flogged through years or decades of work, but the other day I heard from one of my ex-students. She bust a gut through school and university to become a lawyer. She’s about 23 now, and like so many other people she’s been working at home in her job in corporate law. The experience has galled her. Stripped bare of what she called the glamour of working in a team and going to a busy office she has seen her job for what it is: a Dickensian drudge of Jarndyce and Jarndyce paperwork. This girl is a grafter and a person of real determination, but she has already come to the conclusion this is not something she can possibly do for the rest of her life. She might well have come to that conclusion anyway, but it has come a whole lot faster.
While I am on students, let’s not forget that, for children, school is their working world. It’s stressful for them too, just as much as it is for the teachers and indeed probably for some a great deal worse. I came to realise as a teacher myself that plenty of teenagers – especially – find the deadlines, the noise, the pressure, and the relentless preoccupation with the barbarities of social media to be a seriously debilitating experience, emotionally and mentally. For hundreds of thousands of them I’ll bet the last few weeks have included a profound sense of relief to be away from school. For some, even the journey to school by bus or the walk down the road to or from the school is traumatic.
The parents no longer have to struggle with turfing them out of bed, sorting out breakfast, making sure they have everything they need – and all with an eye on the clock. The same parents no longer have to experience the onslaught of exhausted and hungry offspring piling back in the late afternoon. And there are plenty of parents who hate the effect school has on their children.
Therefore, I’m not one tiny bit surprised that so many people think that Lockdown Land is a nicer place to be. For a start it never rains. Well, hardly ever. There are no heaving commutes to work on nightmare trains. For the victims of Southern Rail the last few weeks must feel like Paradise Lost has become Paradise Regained. No more getting up at the crack of dawn, the last few hours of sleep a fevered agitation in advance of hurling oneself out of bed.
For those lucky enough to have a decent house and garden, their loved ones mostly in residence as well as being furloughed, the Land of Might-Have-Been has turned out, at least for the moment, to be the Land That Actually Is and “far more mercifully planned” than the one they know.1 “Human kind cannot bear very much reality,” said T.S. Eliot, and he was right. It’s why Lockdown Land has proved so dangerously beguiling.2
Even better, in a remarkable and unexpected nod to Ancient Rome, the Annona has been revived. The Annona was the Corn Dole. Not every citizen of Rome was entitled to it but a very large number were, and the effect was that about half the huge city’s population depended on it. What this meant was that all you had to do was loaf around in Rome and occasionally go and get your handout of free food. And if the Roman government failed to deliver then there was hell to pay, even if it wasn’t the government’s fault that storms or pirates had compromised the shipments: riots erupted when the crowd got hungry. The emperor Claudius was confronted by an enraged mob when only a few days’ supplies were left. His solution was to “ramp up” the administrative and harbour arrangements to ensure an improved supply. It was politically impossible to run the scheme down – another ominous portent that goes alongside the rent and mortgage holidays.
And now, having done all that, our beastly government is trying to get people back to work. It’s an absolute swiz but luckily it comes with a trump card, and everyone has one. Since the government reliably assured the population of Britain that to step out of the front door would either mean dying oneself, or causing someone else to die, or both, then there’s a spectacularly good reason to continue to stay at home.
Of course there is also a terrible side to all this. The Ruin of Britain is staring us in the face. The money will run out soon. Not only that, but also Winter is Coming. It’s easy to forget that we are less than a month from the summer solstice. Then it’s all downhill to the dark cold months when not having a job, or any income, or any security, will sit uncomfortably alongside all the normal physical ailments of the northern hemisphere. Hundreds of thousands of people and their families will be confronted by genuine destitution, deprived of the ability to earn their modest livings in zero-hours contracts or with their vulnerable businesses. Right now, many of them cannot afford food. In five months’ time they’ll be struggling to pay fuel bills, too.
None of this was thought about by the government or its advisers – or if it was, they reacted like Scarlett O’Hara who always said she’d “think about that tomorrow”. No-one ever considered the possibility that, by throwing a switch, so much could change in a population’s psyche, and so quickly. We are of course stuck between a rock and a hard place. The virus is a fact of life now, but so and always was our need to earn our living. The Earth owes us nothing.
What matters in life is not what goes well, but what goes wrong and how we deal with it. So far we have not dealt with this particularly effectively. We have replaced one problem with another and a far bigger one at that, like burning a house down to deal with a water leak. If we are to solve this new self-inflicted problem then the government’s responsibility now – and it is all our responsibility – is to move as fast as possible to rid this country of its new-normal mindset that hiding behind the front door is the path to our salvation. We are living in an entirely false state at the moment, like inhabiting the basket beneath a hot air balloon with the fuel about to run out but obliviously continuing to enjoy the ride.
Not long before the virus crisis took hold my three-year-old granddaughter was supposed to be going out for a walk. “I’m not ready,” she said. It soon transpired that this was not a statement about not having her coat or shoes on but a more metaphysical observation of her state of mind. “I’m not ready” meant she was not disposed to going out at all. Ever. She would therefore never be ready.
I am reminded of that every time I hear someone saying “I’m not going back to work until I feel safe”, or “I’m not sending my child back to school until it is safe to do so”. Such sentiments are conveniently couched in rational terms, but in reality they cloak an emotional reluctance ever to return. Right now they represent this country’s biggest obstacle to recovery. The world has changed and we can never go back to where we were, but whatever we do we have to face up to the realities to which Lockdown Land has closed so many people’s eyes and not hide beneath the bedclothes where we might suffocate instead.
There is much good luck in the world, but it is luck.
E.M. Forster, The Longest Journey (1907).
We are none of us safe.
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Youknow, I wonder if the CCP might fail in their bid for world domination by 2049 after all? There’s only so far lying and tyranny can get you.
The idea that China want’s to occupy the world is the same type of information that we have been fed about covid killing everyone on the planet unless we do what government tells us, and that the Russian intervention in Ukraine is just a one sided argument.
In case no one has noticed, China hasn’t prosecuted a major war anywhere on the planet for at least 70 years since WW2, unlike the US/UK/European military industrial complex.
China begins building its belt and road initiative as a trading platform, but that’s somehow more dangerous to the world than the US bombing Yemen or Iraq.
We are told by western media that the Chinese are enslaving people to work in factories, yet Chinese labour is so cheap why would they need to bother?
We are told the CCP is so brutal that people in China have no freedom, yet London is full of Chinese tourists and the country is Rolls Royce’s biggest customer.
Whilst manufacturing is supposedly virtually state owned, one of the richest men in the world is a school teacher who started Alibaba. Oddly enough, this multi billionaire still chooses to live in China.
There’s a bit of a theme here. Russia is condemned by the US/UK and Europe for ‘invading’ Ukraine, the money laundering capital of the world which is, strangely enough being handed another $40bn of Taxpayers money, when there are serious questions to be answered by Hunter Biden, the Presidents son about his dealings in the country. Meanwhile, China, India, Africa and Latin America refuse to condemn Russia for its intervention in Ukraine.
What makes everyone think that the worlds most aggressive nations, operating an almost closed shop trading block (the US/UK/European cosy club) are the good guys all the time when we are demonstrably not.
Why is every global leader who doesn’t march in lockstep (Bolsonaro of Brazil, Orban of Hungary, Xi of China, Putin of Russia and numerous African leaders) with the west, painted as some sort of far right, or in China’s case far left, dictatorial nutter by our government and media?
Rather than condemning everything that moves out-with our own little isolated western community, I think we should be taking a long, cold hard look at our own governments to understand how we are being manipulated.
You might have received an uptick until I got to “out-with.”
For crying out loud.
Piss poor English. It does you no credit. Too long in the civil service.
Morning hp!
Might it have been a typo? I’m pleased to see that you didn’t give a downtick!
A typo as I now see I’ve made, in posting “theyseem” as one word …
Good morning AE. No I didn’t give a down tick. I am ordinarily very generous with upticks but I have to be really annoyed to downtick.
Also, I refuse to respond to the trolls. I don’t even downtick them.
I spent a long time upticking here, before I posted. It was my first experience of upticking, and I am now an enthusiast – eagerly helping out the algorithms on You Tube.
As far as trolls are concerned, I have learnt from your wise example!
‘Outwith’ is northern, mainly Scottish, dialect, and is perfectly grammatical.
On the other hand! ‘want’s’ with an apostrophe is crass – and the writer isn’t even consistent in his crassnesss, since the next third-person singular present indicative is written correctly as ‘tells’.
Worse things happen in Africa.
To paraphrase hp: Too long in academe?
This website is sneakily liable to insert its own spelling and typos, which are likely to be overlooked in a longish comment and not noticed in time to be edited.
Too much influence by American English.
IE: it’s not a “power outage”, it’s a power cut.
This is not a criticism, just an observation.
As Bismark said when he was asked what he thought was the most significant event in the 19th century. His reply: “That North America speaks English”.
I agree Phil. We don’t have footpaths now – “footway.”
“Out with” might be Scottish but it is not English. I had never come across it until a few years ago when it became a serious infection in the civil service.
I’m a Yorkshire lass – it’s been part of my vocabulary all my life.
Railway stations are now train stations.
Another of the penalties of living too long.
My pet hate: Between a rock and a hard place, what’s wrong with Between the Devil and the deep blue sea or if you’re cultured like Boris Johnson, Between Scylla and Charybdis
It hasn’t yet reached Oz. And I am pleased to report that we still have footpaths.
He also spelled ‘wants’ as ‘want’s’:
“The idea that China want’s to occupy the world”
Good questions!
I’m very wary of any words from Western media about the imminent economic collapse of either Russia or China. It sounds a bit too much like wishful thinking.
I’ve been puzzled by what I’ve read of the Shanghai lockdown. I don’t think the Chinese are led by “nutters” – theyseem pretty shrewd to me. So I wonder what’s really going on.
I think that 2049 is an anniversary that they take fairly seriously, and that they expect to be the strongest global economy and to have gained control o Taiwan by then.
It is fairly clear to me that there has been tyranny in Shanghai (and elsewhere) and subterfuge over the Wuhan lab leak. Their notorious one child policy was one of their worst human rights abuses, but there have been others (it is reported in our journals that they have started demolishing churches again). I sometimes wonder if China will find a way of getting away with their current horrendous demographic crisis and avoiding the mistakes of the Soviet Union, and embracing aspects of capitalism will certainly help, but when I see what is going on in Shanghai, apparently because the government can’t afford to back down over zero “covid” madness, and when I hear that their relaxation of the one child policy has made little difference, that they have to import wives from Korea and the Philippines, I begin to wonder if they might struggle to fulfil their long term goals after all.
Of course there are plenty of problems in “Western” countries too, and I pretty much take it for granted that they will be in serious trouble before long unless things change (and maybe even if they do).
As for occupying the world, I understand that their strategy is to gain influence in countries (universities in Britain, infrastructure projects in Africa etc.) rather than actually go to the bother of invading them. I understand they are prepared to bide their time over Taiwan, although “Western” provocations may change things.
Ahh no China isn’t misunderstood. The CCP is the model for technocracy. It has been aided in achieving that goal by the West and it is virtually there bar the full roll out of its digital currency.
You are required by law to register your identity on any device, phone or computer with your face and digital ID. You are allocated a social credit score and, just in the last 2 years millions of Chinese have been barred from travel for low scores which include communication with low score entities as well as criticising or peddling misinformation as the government sees it. So those Chinese you see touring were the good citizens.
As for Jack Ma, whom you allude to, the guy was vanished by the CCP for criticising the globalist venture. He’s been punished and put in his place. God knows what they did to him.
Lets not forget organ harvesting and outright slavery of the Uigars. Why do they do it since Labour is so “cheap” you ask? Because they are an evil racist technocracy that does wtf they want.
I wouldn’t be so enthralled by the CCP.
Read Ian Davis’ Pseudopandemic
Here is a link to a free download: https://archive.org/details/iain-davis-pseudopandemic
It will be a painful read.
China hasn’t prosecuted a major war anywhere on the planet for at least 70 years since WW2
It depends what you mean by prosecute and major. The Korean war was pretty big and there was the annexation of Tibet and the war with India
I think you need to read Michael P Sender’s book, ‘Snake Oil’
I mean Michael P Senger!
Or
’Mao. The Unknown Story’ by Chang
Or
‘The Dragon in the land of snows’ (on Tibet) by Shakya
Or
’The hundred year marathon’ by Pilsbury
Or
‘China, trade and power’ by Paterson
Or
’Asia’s new geopolitics’ by Auslin
Or
‘Hidden Hand’ by Hamilton and Ohlberg
——
It is possible that ALL states do not have the best interests of their people at heart. That is regardless of whether their Putin’s, the CCP, the US, Trudeau’s etc
Well, there was the case of the cultural revolution and insane things like killing all the birds because they were eating grain and then suffering an explosion in growth of insects because there were no birds to eat them, then the Tiananmen Square incident and the rounding up of the Uighurs and other minorities but apart from that they’ve got a loverly long wall and an even bigger firewall. I agree that the West can’t see it’s own shadow which has been – and continues to be – cast over vast swathes of the planet but China’s shadow, which is very, very dark at home (social credits, mass surveillance etc) is far more subtle and uniquely Chinese in that it is discrete and quietly infiltrates countries around the world, never bringing attention to itself.
The CDC which is in bed with big pharma…
Yes, they’ve recorded dramatic increases in rapes by “women” haven’t they?
I wonder, do women who don’t want to see “her penis” in changing rooms etc. have rights too?
Indeed the trans thing does seem one sided, I doubt that many women who decide to go trans to male but who still have female anatomy would want to strip off and shower and change with a group of male sportsmen.
The trans movement has no concern for actual transgender people. It is just a convenient thing for morons to screech about because transgender people are a tiny minority with little visibility (usually, being invisible is their goal). Even the flagship personal pronoun dictats are logically of no benefit to transgender people, they only benefit virtue signallers.
Yes. I heard there were some historic churches in Norfolk that badly needed repairs as well. I suppose my ancestor (Sir Cloudesley Shovell) who helped free the English slaves in North Africa and has a memorial on C of E property will be safe…
Great name – Sir Cloudesley Shovel – something that Mervyn Peake might have come up with.
C of E to plough £30m into Net Zero will net it zero new parishioners in the pews. Laboring in the vineyard this is not.
I do wonder about the C of E sometimes.
Yesterday, at the beginning of our Sunday Eucharist service, the rector told us that the Chalice (the part of Communion that holds the sacramental wine) would return sometime in…. September.
The C of E should stick to being a church that looks after its parishioners, attends to the poor, sick, hungry and destitute, helps communities to flourish etc. It shouldn’t get involved in ridiculous schemes to make itself seem relevant in a changing world. People look to a church, I imagine, for its solidity, its stability, its consistent message and consistent actions. It’s no wonder their flock have left, they don’t seem to stand for anything any longer and the Bishops appear to be part-businessmen/women and part-politician.
Both our principal churches are deeply embedded in the Reset. The Pope is probably a satanist ref Archbishop Vigano.
Welby is an ex business man in poor drag, although given the way he conducts himself I suspect he left the world of business before he was pushed. Or possibly he’s a WEF plant.
Morning HP, I guess the days are long gone where the church was full of priests, vicars etc whose only concern was the well-being of their immediate flock. Christ would be turning in his grave (if he had one).
He did that on the third day!
Next: He comes again in glory to judge the living and the dead.
Welby is a WEF plant.
If he’s a plant, then he’s most likely a noxious type and needs weeding out and putting on the compost.
From the neck up!
Rand Paul would make a great president of the US. It would mean having to give up his ‘Drag Race’ programme though, I suspect.
It Won’t Be Long Before They Come For Your Family Home
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhIWUgqXgAw
WE GOT A PROBLEM
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