Six Feet Deep.

UK politicians in government, sourced from the Conservative Party, being responsible to safeguard our lives through appropriate investments of our collective tax monies, stockpiled for the risks of hard Brexit.

They created expensive infrastructures for Brexit. But they did not sufficiently create the necessary precautions for a predictable and preannounced likelihood of an epidemic/pandemic.

That, it is said, would not have gone down well amongst voters, as a politically urgent priority and expenditure, unlike, presumably, the urgency of Brexit, “going our own way, free from the shackles of the EU.” Shackles? We are drowning, suffocating with a virus multiplying in our lungs! Those who advocated for Brexit told me frequently, “well once we are out, you know who to blame.” They would be “our politicians” sitting in Westminster. So let’s start then, for this is not the working of the EU.

Alas, the arguments of Brexit supporting politicians were simply not the correct ones. Our destiny is currently at arm’s length from the overcrowded morgues, rather than the crown of the globe. “Global Britain” it was going to be, for “we know better than the rest” and also “we have the “glorious NHS.” Is that glorious as in “our glorious dead?” Perhaps that is why our political rulers speak of war so often? We may be the worst affected country in Europe, after all, with hospitals less well equipped as of some other European countries. For sure “our” NHS is great, but all doctors and medics are, in whatever country they may be, unlike “our” politicians.

Back then, even UK-bound migration could have been managed adequately with sufficient investment in housing, new schools and hospitals and training courses for UK-workers. Investment again, that was never made. Instead, they shut hospitals, kept nurses wages down, and reduced even the value of the stocks of emergency equipment for a time like this.

They can talk nicely, they can talk patriotically, they can wave the flag, talk of “our” nation, “our” country, pride and how wonderful “we” are. The British spirit is with us, these days, thy claim? What is that? To tolerate and vote for stupifying political classes, against solid evidence, just because they talk nicely, make us feel great for wishful soap bubbles? Of course, that is not just “British,” other countries and nations fall for similar packs.

Their words do not safe the doctor, nurse or care-worker without protective equipment, or the elderly person in a care home, who thought s/he still had a few years of life to look forward to, nor can they magically deliver those missing ventilators. Nor will global Britain deliver any, not even plastic clothing to needy countries overseas.

There is a very bitter irony in all of that, happening at a moment some in this country imagined themselves to be literally on top of the world. The reality is six feet deep for a growing number of people. Perhaps that is what was needed for more sombre and down to earth humility.