Thought John Harris in the Guardian over the weekend made a solid point about the fact that the Tories appear utterly dysfunctional in the face of reality. He notes in particular the machinations amongst some in that party to bring back Boris Johnson. Yet he argues:
But there are even bigger oversights at the heart of the Johnson cult, which also seem to be evident in politics and the media more widely. In Westminster, news about his alleged lockdown antics inevitably generates a huge amount of noise – but in doing so, it heightens the sense that there are stories about Covid and its legacy that we have still barely heard.
And he points to continuing high rates of absenteeism in British schools post-pandemic.
Rates of "persistent absence", defined as missing more than 10% of school, have soared from 13% to 24%, which means that 1.7 million children in England are regularly not in the classroom. These numbers are much worse in places with high levels of poverty and deprivation: Newcastle, Bradford, Middlesbrough.
And there are other signs of the problem:
Clearly, every absent, underperforming or anxious child is indicative of a level of social damage that still seems to be barely registering. In January this year, an estimated 2 million people in the UK were experiencing what the government calls "self-reported long Covid". In 2022, 2.5 million people said they were not working because of long-term sickness, an increase of about 500,000 since the pandemic began. Between 2021 and 2022, the number of people newly awarded disability benefits doubled: about a third of the new claims were for mental or behavioural conditions, but among those under 25 that figure rose to 70%. The most visible political response to all this so far has been the government's tightening of benefit sanctions and Tory calls – linked to the party's angst about immigration – for the benefits system to punitively push people into work, which is a good indication of Conservatism's current ethical bankruptcy.
And this:
At the most recent count, there have been 226,622 deaths in the UK with Covid mentioned on the death certificate, which entails a terrifying number of people who have experienced the effects of bereavement, often in the most impossible circumstances. Through 2020, 2021 and beyond, friendships slipped, and millions of people's loneliness deepened. Grandparents and their grandkids were stuck in the midst of a particularly awful predicament: the time eaten up by lockdowns was an eternity to most children, and equally soul-sapping for people approaching the end of their lives. Throw in Brexit, inflation and all our other national problems, and you have an instant picture of why this country feels so disoriented and exhausted.
In some ways Harris is almost making a whataboutery case - almost. But to a purpose I think.
I've long been struck, and others have mentioned it on this site, at how much damage, and much of it unacknowledged, the pandemic has caused - first and foremost in terms of those dead or with chronic illnesses. But also at the fabric of lives and the mental health of all who went through an unprecedented process that lasted for years. Few if any alive now experienced this before, surely? And certainly the impacts of the pandemic (which by the by it's only fair to note isn't over albeit much alleviated) across so many areas are obvious to see. Politics was already fragile in some ways here and there, but certain expressions of political activity I'd hesitantly argue were accentuated by the stresses of the pandemic. And similarly across a range of areas. How could it be otherwise.
Of course the question is how to address all this, I'd also wonder is that even possible given the complexity of the society? Harris suggests notes the absence of consideration about the pandemic and its impacts. He writes 'we hear almost no attempts to even speak meaningfully to the country about what it is still going through.' In one sense that's understandable. Politicians, of all people, are keen to turn the page. So are people. It's been noted how the 1918 flu pandemic faded from memory with remarkable speed, though the proximity to the First World War no doubt played a part in that. Is there some element of that at play here?
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