A double vaccinated member of my Catalan family has now contracted Covid and will have to self-isolate, emerging from this on the 22nd of December, just in time for the Christmas Celebrations. At the moment he has flu-like symptoms, and we are hoping that they do not develop any further, relying on the expectation that the vaccination will limit any serious consequences.
What it does do is emphasise that the pandemic is nowhere near over, and we are still very much in the dark as far as any coherent view about what post-pandemic life may be, and when we might be experiencing it.
At this moment in time, all our planned celebrations for the three days from Christmas Eve are still in place, though these same plans become more brittle with each passing day.
In spite of the growing fears about the Omicron variant, there does not seem to be a great deal of concern about the progress of the pandemic, and the rules that are already in place do not seem to be widely followed.
For example, we are now supposed to show Covid vaccination certificates in restaurants, bars, gyms etc – the policy is, shall we say, being loosely applied. Today in a restaurant we were not asked for our certificate, and I saw no one who came into the restaurant asked.
If this laxity is indicative of the approach here, then it is only a matter of time before the pressing need for more taxing restrictions are brought in because of an exponential rise in infection.
I count myself partly to blame because, until Toni mentioned it this evening, it didn’t even cross my mind that the regulations had not been followed. Life goes on as normal, and one is easily seduced into forgetting the reality with which one is surrounded.
I know that it is wrong for the government to expect members of the public to act as their surrogates in getting policy delivered, but it is in all our interests that the very reasonable precautions that should be taken, are taken.
I resolve to show my certificate even if I am not asked for it, and that might provoke the right behaviour. I shall be more vigilant in future. In a future that looks increasingly bleak as the news of the spread of the Omicron variation looks unstoppable.
Yet again I ask myself what the Conservative Party has to do to get people to stop voting and supporting them!
It is an exhausting job merely listing the scandals that Johnson and his rag bag government have racked up.
Just in the last week or so we have had the revelations about the last year Christmas parties that were held (or not held) in 10 Downing Street, with Johnsons categorical (eventual) denials having all the force of the ‘do not tumble dry’ instruction on clothes (image courtesy of John Crace or Marina Hyde in the Guardian). Basically, if Johnson says something it is a fairly secure rule of thumb that the exact opposite is true. So, while the rest of the country was obeying the strict lockdown rules, No 10 was flouting them. And now lying about them.
Coupled with this is the “apology” for failings in the Grenville Tower disaster in the administration of building regulations. Tell that to the dead.
Today we heard graphic descriptions of the disorganized chaos in the Foreign Office with the deadhead Raab presiding over a dysfunctional and deadly, inefficient, badly led, disaster of a department.
And the final and grotesque garnish to the vileness of the government is the revealing of the lies that Johnson and No 10 have talked about the evacuation of pets before people. I am a staunch believer in the fact that people who do not care about animals, will care little for humans as well. But people must come before pets, and if resources were diverted to help a pet sanctuary rather than help the people who aided the mission in Afghanistan AND that Johnson lied about his involvement, then surely disgust and repugnance is the only appropriate attitude to have towards him and the low life that supports him.
And that lot is only what has been brought to us today! It is exhausting despising the worthless chancers who rule us. With Thatcher (whom I hated and continue to hate) I didn’t feel this drained and depleted by my loathing. Thatcher was a person and not a cult. Johnson is a populist with, as far as I can tell, not a shred of ‘ethos’ motivating his actions apart from his narcissistic self-regard. He demeans the country, politics, and himself. He is a disgrace – but he will not and indeed cannot see that. To recognize his own fatal limitations will mean his instant evaporation.
It will be instructive to see what happens to the Conservative majority in the next by-election. If the Conservative Party senses that he has or will become a liability, they will be ruthless in their elimination of an obstacle to their continued grip on power.
I can look forward to Johnson’s fall from grace (though he certainly did that a long, long time ago) but I shudder at the ‘slimy things with legs’ that will slither their way out of the sewer of sleaze and corruption that is the Conservative Party at the moment and try and shin their way up the greasy Tory donor money painted pole to power.
God help us all!
