Riding It Out: The 'Tory Philosophy' of not giving a monkeys about you - or the NHS - and hoping you don't notice or care too much
As somebody who has had coronavirus recently, I can assure you that it’s not a particularly pleasant thing - it’s subjective, of course; my experiences may differ to others in the sense that my case may have been more or less severe, but in any case I wouldn’t wish the risk [or the symptoms, however minimal, moderate or severe - and the aftermath] on my worst enemy.
That’s where Boris Johnson and I differ - because even though he has experienced it himself [and reportedly far worse], he doesn’t seem particularly fazed about whether you get it or not.
Sajid Javid was another that experienced this lack of compassionate empathy - he tested positive for coronavirus on [of all days] my birthday in July last year.
He later went on to state in a famously deleted, Randian tweet, for which he apologised [to some degree]:
"Symptoms were mild, thanks to amazing vaccines. Please – if you haven't yet – get your jab, as we learn to live with, rather than cower from, this virus."
Javid wasn’t particularly fazed by his brush with coronavirus either - and so once again, I find myself having nothing in common with yet another Conservative.
It isn’t because I haven’t read The Fountainhead [or Atlas Shrugged, or other works by Ayn Rand - - I have], it’s just because I do not subscribe to the concept of selfishness as a virtue [in really simple terms explaining Ayn Rand’s overarching, mostly non-scholarly, non-peer reviewed ‘philosophy’ on the death of altruism and not particularly giving a damn about other people].
Familiar page favourite comedian/joke politician and Conservative MP for Ashfield Lee Anderson likely hasn’t read The Fountainhead either - it has probably been suggested to him - and so he isn’t likely to recite [as part of a ritual - twice a year; allegedly to his wife] the turgid courtroom scene like Sajid Javid apparently does.
However, there’s a convergence of intellectualism vs. anti-intellectualism within the Conservative Party where those who ‘know’ are sitting on the same benches as those who ‘don’t know’ - but what both share, whether they ‘know’ or ‘don’t know’ is, essentially: “...But I don’t care.”
Lee Anderson, for instance, doesn’t seem to care about the environment.
He tells the Daily Mail in a recent piece that his voters do not care either, and he speaks for all of them since they elected him to speak for him - that they’re more concerned about their fuel bills.
Anderson says:
“...mention the Net Zero journey to people in Ashfield and they will look at you as if you have just arrived from another planet.”
It’s remarkably poignant from Anderson.
In some ways, Anderson might be right - at least in a 2021-Netflix ‘Don’t Look Up’ sense; sociologically, where complexities and ‘important stuff’ is reduced to nothing by a media looking to piggyback off the next clickbait item all the while society goes, ‘Oh’ , at an impending astrophysical extinction level event.
But here’s the problem - Lee Anderson is the kind of person that wouldn’t have all of the facts at his disposal to - not necessarily coax people into concerning themselves with the environment but educate them enough to understand why they perhaps should, and in a way that they might understand.
Actually, being surrounded by climate change denialists like Steve Baker, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, and “one in fifteen” Conservative MPs - many of whom are the same nefarious cabal of uncaring individuals within the Covid Recovery Group who are similarly sceptical of climate change - hinders ‘educating voters’ further.
One suspects Lee Anderson, along with supporting a ‘Hard Brexit’ and a ‘Hard Covid’ strategy - as spoken about before - he’ll be first in line to subscribe to whatever ‘Hard’ [needlessly contrarian, deliberately awkward, and often dichotomous] strategy the Conservatives take on Net Zero moving forward - given further vindication by the recent addition of Lord Frost to the mix of lunatics.
As explored several times over the course of 2 or 3 articles on this page though, Boris Johnson’s biggest problem is ‘this lot’ whose apparent ‘libertarian instincts’ go against the grain of effective action tackling various crises as they present themselves - be it on coronavirus, fuel bills [for which Rishi Sunak seems unconcerned], the Net Zero target or otherwise.
And Brexit, no-less, which even the Telegraph have written needs to be explained as anything other than a “historic failure.” [!]
It was said at the beginning of the pandemic [in the UK] that the hesitancy of Boris Johnson to introduce restrictions behind other countries - such as Ireland that introduced theirs on the third day as the Cheltenham Festival - was due to his ‘libertarian instincts.’
And so we can deduce from this that Boris Johnson is fundamentally supportive of this ilk of Randian ‘heroes’; or rather, they represent an untethered and ‘unchained’ approach the Prime Minister might support if he were not Prime Minister.
Or at least - if he were not Prime Minister where he was forced against his ‘instincts’ into caring about other people for the first time in his life.
The Prime Minister’s press conference from yesterday, for example:
Is Boris Johnson ‘right’ - in this case - to follow his ‘libertarian instincts’ ?
I would strongly recommend this excellent analysis from the Financial Times’ John Burn-Murdoch in providing an answer:
One of the key metrics used by the government to introduce ‘draconian measures’ is the number of hospitalisations.
However, one of the messages also used by the government at the beginning of the pandemic was ‘Protect the NHS’.
As we see from various reports - spoken about to a lesser degree in my previous article - and also throughout the media cycle in recent days - the NHS has now been placed on ‘war footing’ - due in part to staff shortages and redeployment.
In extreme cases, like Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, service users are being told that if they are experiencing a likely heart attack, that they would need to make their own way to A&E.
The Government’s vaccine minister Maggie Throup even indicated that she did not know how many hospitals around the UK are declaring critical incidents while insisting that the government “definitely does” have a handle on the situation.
Note: It really doesn’t appear to, with many trusts around the country declaring critical incidents according to Sunday Times’ Health editor Shaun Lintern who has been nobly compiling a list. Downing St. later confirmed that “more than 20” critical incidents had been declared.
The Prime Minister, in his speech, acknowledged the “considerable pressure” that the NHS was under and even went so far as to say in the same breath that certain parts of the NHS would be overwhelmed.
In a similar vernacular, and juxtaposed, he mentioned at the start of the pandemic:
'Many more families are going to lose loved ones before their time'.
This process of ‘normalisation’ [or ‘anticipatory grief’] shouldn’t appear ‘acceptable’.
Alas, in society, and even despite the number of inevitable/preventable deaths the UK experienced and decided was ‘acceptable’ throughout the early days of the pandemic [and to this day], support for Johnson surged.
Society, it seems, has become so Randian - and so like Lee Anderson feels his voters are towards Net Zero - that if the NHS is ‘overwhelmed’, we should somehow normalise ourselves to the prospect of a ‘loved’ healthcare system ‘lost before its time’ , too.
Even though ‘Protecting the NHS’ was a key message behind Johnson’s approach; that we should all have collectively [rather than individually] worked towards.
Which seems rather awkward at this point considering he doesn’t appear to be doing it - and sad, too, when the reason he isn’t doing it is to appease backbenchers that are waiting for him to introduce more restrictions just so that they can symbolically [and uncaringly] vote against them, and most likely, confidence in his leadership.
Johnson, it seems, is “riding out” the hopes that - like March and April in 2020 - society cares about as much as he does [ie. not much] and doesn’t notice coronavirus - because if he does, it’ll likely cost him his job.
And what a torrid predicament that is - that if you care too much, you’ll be sacked; ironically, it’s the antithesis of why people take up a profession in the NHS to begin with.
Ayn Rand would be astonished; she’d probably clap every Thursday, too.