I listened to the evidence given by Helen MacNamara, the former deputy cabinet secretary who was in office as the Covid crisis developed, given to the Covid inquiry yesterday. As I did, one overwhelming thought occurred to me. It was constructed in the form of a question, which was “How different would things have been if number 10 had been more woke in March 2020?“
I know that the term woke is not universally appreciated or understood. However, if we simply think of it as a description of those people who have an understanding of the impact of discrimination on others, and who wish to act to mitigate that effect, then I think it can be of use.
What Helen MacNamara suggested was that the cabinet, the prime minister and their advisory teams were seemingly more aware of the impact of lockdown on football, hunting, shooting and fishing than they were on women, those (including children) subject to domestic violence, otherwise vulnerable children, pregnant women, the sick, minorities, and others who are all too often the subject of discrimination within our society. Helen McNamara made clear that she thought that very few of the people who gathered in the macho environment of Downing Street had any real awareness of the needs of these people - who between them are the majority of society
We will never know what might have happened if she had succeeded in raising awareness of this discrimination, as she said she tried to do. Real life does not include controlled experiments of that sort. It is, however, not hard to think that outcomes could have been substantially better than they were. In some cases risk for vulnerable people could have been significantly lowered. In others, mental health might have been protected. And as she specifically pointed out, many pregnant women would have had a much better birth experience, and their children would have had a better start in life, if only a little more sensitivity had been applied in their case. More broadly, the women working in health and social care, who are the majority, might have had PPE that was designed to fit them. That did not happen, however.
What it is important to appreciate, however, is that if that was the case then it was not only because of the particular, and very odd, profile of people in Number 10 at that point in time. The failure was very obviously systemic. As Helen, MacNamara pointed out, much of the required information to support decision-making on an inclusive basis did not exist. If it did, those meant to be using it were not interested.
The lesson to be learned from this is obvious. Firstly, we simply cannot afford to be indifferent in this way. Certain parts of society, usually associated with right-wing thinking, have created a considerable prejudice against those who care for others. That prejudice has a considerable cost in terms of human suffering. That was apparent during the Covid crisis.
Second, the whole idea of government should be based upon the idea of concern for others. When it is not, as was so obviously the case during this period, government fails everyone.
Third, the failure to collect data that highlights the causes and impact of discrimination is in itself an act of discrimination which is unacceptable in the 21st century.
Fourth, codes of conduct and warm words are insufficient to address this: active elimination of the indifference that causes harm to others has to be a core function of government, whatever the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph might wish to represent.
I do not care if some people think I am woke as a result of saying this. If that is the case, I am proud of it. The catastrophe is that there is a narrative within our society that condemns those who are.
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I admit that I watched MacNamara’s evidence and felt embarrassed for my country and was left totally disillusioned. I sort of knew things were bad but THIS bad?
Was the world watching this? I still think the UK needs to pull out of everything and just huddle up on our little island and sort ourselves out. And the people who enabled all of this are those pretending to be states people right now (and that includes HM Opposition).
The Tories have a lot to answer for from 2010. They have come in and on the back of a hoodie hugging half brained toff, and gleefully gone about vandalising everything , even our capacity run things because they refuse to see that it is the power of the State that holds things together and gives everything coherence.
We are diminished and we need a Truth & Reconciliation Commission pronto to help us repair ourselves.
Anyone who has read Luigi Barzini’s book ‘The Europeans’ would be hard pressed to recognise his respectful characterisation of English government and diplomacy now.
Without wishing to trivialise the important point you make, I think Kathy Burke summed it up very succinctly – using some earthy language, hence the link rather than a quote, to avoid upsetting anyone.
https://twitter.com/KathyBurke/status/1502941939427074050?lang=en
🙂
The Tory government has managed to evade close scrutiny of its decision making re Brexit and Covid because of Ukraine and Israel/Palestine. The Inquiry so far has revealed shocking work practices, callous indifference to the suffering of many, and complete ignorance of how most of us think and deal with daily life. There will be more shocking revelations. I wonder if criminal charges, say malfeasance in public office, may follow. Wouldn’t that be nice?
Michael Mansfield of the People’s Covid Inquiry sent letters to the Met accusing Johnson and Hancock of misconduct in public office. Nothing happened so far.
This is what that inquiry thinks of this inquiry.
https://36085122-5b58-481e-afa4-a0eb0aaf80ca.usrfiles.com/ugd/360851_e74763f6a4db4d43b30145f75daba5ae.pdf
Watching Simon Stevens at the moment. He spends lots of time saying he can’t remember the details exactly. He has no file in front of hiim, whereas McNamara had all the paperwork yesterday.
One of the reasons there was People’s Covid Inquiry led by Michael Mansfield was so that people would not forget. That was over two years ago. The report was December 2021.
All the evidence from this inquiry has been given to the official one.
They did not need to be woke, they just needed to be efficient to save 40,000 lives by locking down two weeks earlier.
But that required them to be worried enough to do that and they weren’t because they were not woke
Let’s be honest, no matter what you thought of the alternative in 2017/2019, one cannot envision a centre left government of any composition being as incompetent and morally null as the Johnson one (and his successors). For that tragedy, take a bow Labour Together, Starmer, the media, Murdoch, and all the fellow travellers in Labour settling scores.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation recently reported that 3.8 million people including 1 million children experienced destitution in one of the wealthiest country’s in the world during 2022. Any political party capable of not only presiding over that but actively making it worse with its relentless assaults on the benefits system couldn’t give a flying one about the issues of which you speak and frankly, never have.
The genuinely distressing aspect of it all is that a sufficiently large minority of people have continued to vote this repulsive party into office for 31 of the last 44 years. Not only that, as the people of leafy Uxbridge recently demonstrated greed, selfishness and sociopathy continue to be the principle driving factor on which many base their voting decision.
This. Things do not have to be this way. We have the resources. But they are distributed in a terribly inequitable manner. There is an alternative. If we want it.
It is worth reflecting that the term ‘woke’ was originally used by African Americans, meaning alert to racism and other injustices. Its adoption by some as an all-purpose perjorative has to be seen in the context of the long history of anti-Black racism, one aspect of which is denegration of everything positive done by Black people.
Some who use the term should pay more attention to this history. Others are well aware of it, and use ‘woke’ as a more acceptable alternative to racial slurs.
Accepted