Why voters turned to Thatcher

I was a teenager in the 70s. I remember so clearly the rubbish piled in the streets due to binmen’s strikes, playing monopoly for hours around the kitchen table in candle light with the gas oven on and open to keep us warm during the interminable power cuts caused by untilities strikes. I have upon occasion tried to describe this to young ‘woke’ friends who felt that Corbynism was the answer to all the evils they saw in the country, from the majority daring to vote to leave Europe to a collective failure to accept critical race theory and the assumption that we are all racists whether we know it or not.

The below snippet was written by Janet Daley for the telegraph. It was discussing why 65% of voters supported the increases in taxation, (because we all know that debt run up by the Covid largesse will have to be paid off somehow), and cited the wholesale move of voters towards Thatcherism in the 1979 election. This expresses how I felt at the time. It was the first time in my life that I was old enough to vote, and I can still remember the cheering and delight in my Wolverhampton Polytechnic hall of residence as it became clear that the Thatcher had won. 

Janet Daley article 8^th March 

No one who did not live through the 1970s can imagine the extraordinary, suffocating grip of the unions which controlled virtually all of the services essential to normal life – transport, gas and electricity supply (even the sale of household appliances), telecommunications and the press, plus local council provision of refuse collection, road maintenance and, of course, schooling.

Not to mention the major industries: car and steel production, and most notoriously coal mining. Any or all of these things that were necessary parts not just of the economy but of everyday existence, could be (and frequently were) shut down at a moment’s notice by union bosses who could call official or unofficial (“wildcat”) strikes without legal constraint.

Governments had been judged through the 1960s and 70s on how they managed to cope with this impossible dilemma: Edward Heath’s Industrial Relations Act collapsed in ignominious failure. Harold Wilson was elected to office on the promise that he could reach deals with the union bosses over “beer and sandwiches” at No 10. In other words, by agreeing to share power with them.

It was this desperation – the realisation that the country had become ungovernable – that drove voters to Thatcherism. They may have benefited from the tax cutting and deregulation in the medium and long term but it was not the principal appeal. The overwhelming mood of that moment – if you are too young to remember it, ask your parents – was rage and despair, and the sense that if the tyranny of the unions could not be broken, the country was finished.

 

Perpetual Lockdown

I've not posted since summer 2020. Summer was quite nice. Six people could meet indoors, you could go to restaurants etc. The Nightingale hospitals remained unused and some were mothballed. There were warnings of an autumn wave but it didn't seem like any preparation happened. When students started at university, there was a wave of infections amongst students, and many were virtually imprisoned in their halls of residences. It was dreadful.

Matt Hancock coined the phrase to "kill your granny" to terrorise young people and school kids with the fear that they might have the virus and give it to their parents. A 4 tier system was introduced. To be honest, I've rather lost track of what was introduced when. Here we started off in tier 2, then suddenly there was an announcement of the UK Variant which was more contagious and arose in Kent. Borders were closed to the UK - France one of the first. But to no avail. The variant I suspect was already well travelled. 

We approached Christmas. Boris had been promising us freedom on Christmas day, but as things deteriorated, and with only a few days notice, all the places (my own included) that were adjacent to the London and Kent areas where the new variant was rife were told they could not meet anybody for Xmas.

A bit of a blow as we'd been planning to have family over. A lot of driving to car parks and present swapping went on and we had a nice Xmas day on our own, but shared with my sister, her husband and my daughter and her boyfriend via zoom. Some people readily admitted that they were going to break the rules and carry on with their Christmas plans as arranged. I doubt it made much difference. It is really come to something in a supposedly democratic country where we are so grateful for such meagre crumbs of civil liberties as to whether or not we can associate with our families.

January arrives bringing with it a full lockdown! Together with laws saying you can only leave your home for specific reasons, buying food, exercising alone or with one other person, going to work, attending medical appointments or escaping danger. Exercise is supposed to take place locally - define local! Early on two women who had driven 5 miles to some open space in Derbyshire with a cup of tea each for a socially distanced walk were fined by the police because they said the tea counted as a picnic and that wasn't allowed. This caused a sensation and was subsequently reversed.

Meanwhile, the UK is leading the world, after Israel, in its vaccine rollout. First vaccine delivered on 8th December 2020. Cases plummeting in the over 80s (first vaccine group). But the roadmap out of lockdown announced by Boris Johnson seems not to take any account of this. 

Step 1 is for schools go back on 8th March. Then nothing until 29th March when outdoor gatherings (including in private gardens) of either 6 people (the Rule of 6) or 2 households will also be allowed, making it easier for friends and families to meet outside.

Outdoor sports facilities such as tennis and basketball courts, and open-air swimming pools, will also be allowed to reopen, and people will be able to take part in formally organised outdoor sports.

The ‘stay at home’ rule will end on 29 March but many restrictions will remain in place. People should continue to work from home where they can and minimise the number of journeys they make where possible, avoiding travel at the busiest times and routes. Travel abroad will continue to be prohibited, other than for a small number of permitted reasons. Holidays abroad will not be allowed, given it will remain important to manage the risk of imported variants and protect the vaccination programme. The government has launched a new taskforce to review global travel which will report on 12 April.

Step 2, which will be no earlier than 12 April, will see the opening of non-essential retail; personal care premises such as hairdressers and nail salons; and public buildings, including libraries and community centres. Indoor leisure facilities such as gyms will also reopen (but only for use by people on their own or in household groups); as will most outdoor attractions and settings including outdoor hospitality venues, zoos, theme parks, and drive-in cinemas. Self-contained accommodation such as campsites and holiday lets, where indoor facilities are not shared with other households, can also reopen.

Hospitality venues will be allowed to serve people outdoors at Step 2 and there will be no need for customers to order a substantial meal with alcoholic drinks and no curfew, although customers must order, eat and drink while seated (‘table service’). Wider social contact rules will apply in all these settings to prevent indoor mixing between different households.

While funerals can continue with up to 30 mourners, the number of people able to attend weddings, receptions and commemorative events such as wakes will rise to 15.

Great - such government interference in the most intimate and important aspects of people lives! I never thought I'd see this. I really hope that the emergency legislation authorised last 23rd March gets repealed this march and that parliament can again have some sort of a say in the legislation. It currently feels like the country is being jerked this way and that on a whim, all the time building up massive debts and horrendous backlogs of undiagnosed cancer, strokes, heart attacks, postponed operations etc etc. Apparently, very high numbers of school children haven't seen a dentist in a year!

Step 3 - not before 17 May

As part of Step 3, no earlier than 17 May, the government will look to continue easing limits on seeing friends and family wherever possible, allowing people to decide on the appropriate level of risk for their circumstances.This means that most legal restrictions on meeting others outdoors will be lifted - although gatherings of over 30 people will remain illegal. Indoors, the Rule of 6 or 2 households will apply - we will keep under review whether it is safe to increase this.

As soon as possible and by no later than Step 3, we will also update the advice on social distancing between friends and family, including hugging. But until this point, people should continue to keep their distance from anyone not in their household or support bubble.

Most businesses in all but the highest risk sectors will be able to reopen. In all sectors, COVID-Secure guidance will remain in place and businesses may not cater for groups bigger than the legal limits. Indoor hospitality will reopen - and as in Step 2, venues will not have to serve a substantial meal with alcoholic drinks; nor will there be a curfew. Customers will, however, have to order, eat and drink while seated.

Other indoor locations to open up in Step 3 include indoor entertainment venues such as cinemas and children’s play areas; the rest of the accommodation sector, including hotels, hostels and B&Bs; and indoor adult group sports and exercise classes. The government will also allow some larger performances and sporting events in indoor venues with a capacity of 1,000 people or half-full (whichever is a lower number), and in outdoor venues with a capacity of 4,000 people or half-full (whichever is a lower number). In the largest outdoor seated venues, where crowds can be spread out, up to 10,000 people will be able to attend (or a quarter-full, whichever is lower).

Up to 30 people will be able to attend weddings, receptions and wakes, as well as funerals. This limit will also apply to other types of significant life events including bar mitzvahs and christenings.

By the time we get to May, hospital admissions will be negligible due to the vaccine rollout. Early indications are that it is effective at preventing people catching covid, ensuring that if they do get it it isn't very bad, and because they aren't ill, it is thought that it inhibits transmission. We were told back on March 23rd that we would have a lockdown of 3 weeks in order to avoid overwhelming the hospitals. These goalposts have been moved multiple times, with Rishi Sunak battling the mathematical modellers, and it now seems that the goal is no longer even on the playing field.

Step 4 - not before 21 June

Social contact By Step 4 which will take place no earlier than 21 June, the government hopes to be in a position to remove all legal limits on social contact.

Business, activities and events

The government 'hopes' to reopen remaining premises, including nightclubs, and ease the restrictions on large events and performances that apply in Step 3. This will be subject to the results of a scientific Events Research Programme to test the outcome of certain pilot events through the spring and summer, where we will trial the use of testing and other techniques to cut the risk of infection. The same Events Research Programme will guide decisions on whether all limits can be removed on weddings and other life events.

Jeez! 

Four more months. Four more months of increasing mental health issues, suicides, imprisonment of the elderly (which in the first case did not protect them, it merely ensured that they could be infected by their carers and staff rather than their family).

It feels like everything, all compassion, all humanity, all the achievements we have made over the past few civilised centuries are being sacrificed at the alter of covid. Even when all are vaccinated (by July) we are told that we will still have to wear masks and socially distance. Why? Few of us will be susceptible and the few that do catch it will not be too ill. There will be a few who still need hospital but that will be far fewer than the admissions (and deaths) from things we take for granted like flu and pneumonia.

We need to learn to live with this virus, and vaccinating points the way. But only if we allow it. The government has deliberately and knowingly terrorised the population to ensure compliance with a regime of totalitarian measures- supplemented by encouraging friends, family and neighbours to snitch on each other, causing distrust and breaking up communities. Who on earth thought this was a good idea...

Day 92 of lockdown

The government are planning to reduce the social distancing measure to 1 metre from 4th July. This is being pre-announced all over the media. Meanwhile Go Outdoors, owned by JD sports, has just called in the administrators with a risk to 2,700 staff across 67 stores. Just the latest of many. Pubs and restaurants look set to be allowed to open but even with a 1m social distancing measure in place this will not be financially viable for many.

People like the Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Whitty, suggests that unless we can develop either a vaccine or treatment that means that the vulnerable groups do not suffer so badly from the disease, we shall have to continue with some form of social distancing probably into 2021. 

I suspect that this will be economically ruinous and that, in the longer term, the impact on deaths of the measures we have taken to control the virus will turn out to be much more severe than the deaths directly attributable to coronavirus, when controlled for deaths that would have occurred normally at that time of the year. 

I've read some interesting analyses of the distribution of deaths from coronavirus. Most deaths are of people with underlying health issues, who probably wouldn't have died had they not caught coronavirus, and the very elderly, possibly with health conditions as well, who may well have died even had they not caught the virus. They were suggesting that with an above average overall death count in the month of May, this may well be balanced out by a lower death rate in June because some of the people who would have died anyway in June had died a month earlier. Well, that seemed to be the basic gist. 

The trouble is, coronavirus deaths are dreadful, and they are immediate, in the here and now. The suicides, the domestic abuse exacerbated by the lockdown and the unavailability of support and the economic deprivation, the mental health issues, the deaths from undiagnosed cancers and untreated neurological complaints, will only become truly apparent in the longer term. 

I'd like to hear a question posed, during these tedious daily governmental coronavirus briefings, asking if it would be possible to have a return to normal with minimal social distancing. I heard today on Radio 4 that there has been a suggestion that when the distancing is reduced to 1m, that people with health issues could wear a ribbon or badge to show that they prefer larger social distance if possible. Well could we not eliminate all social distancing and get everybody back to working normally, with rigourous cleaning and hand sanitisers available. However this would need to be backed up by rapid testing should anybody exhibit symptoms and fast lockdown of any developing clusters of infection. 

This brings me onto the app. So the Govt have done a complete U turn and are now trying to write an app that will use the Apple/Google API. Privacy conditions are stringent. No central storage of data being key. Matt Hancock, Health Secretary tried to but a positive spin on this, but failed. At the very start, I wondered why they didn't just go with the Apple Google app, but instead they've spend, I believe I heard, somewhere in the region of either £11million or £17million. How can anybody spend that much on developing an app that just doesn't work properly. 

I don't think any government would have been prepared for this, least of all one that only came into power on 12th December and that has all the Brexit negotiations to work on on top. However I do ask myself who is advising them. All along I've found myself questioning decisions - 

• The decision to stop testing in the community once the virus took hold in March, but to limit testing to hospitals. That seemed daft and counter to the practice of all the countries, e.g. Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, that had caught the virus and nipped it in the bud. 
• The UK Govt. decision to go their own way and try to develop an tracing app that basically did not conform to Apple or Google privacy guidelines which ultimately wasted money and time.
• The Govt. refusal to back the Covid-19 symptom app that was released by Kings College with a small company Zoe under the aegis of Professor Tim Spector and which now has nearly 4 million contributors. At the time, they said they were concerned in case it caused confusion with the public with the govts. own app (which has failed testing). Even now, I don't think they are partnering with Kings. 
• The Public Health England (PHE) refusal in the early stages to even respond to the offers from private laboratories to use their facilities to fast-track Covid tests. PHE were trying to keep all tests to their own labs in, I believe, Milton Keynes. So testing was so slow to get going in the UK, the virus really took hold. 
• Then there was the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) fiasco. There were companies in the UK that held stocks of PPE and were giving them free to their local hospital (Birmingham) and contacting PHE offering to be their supplier. However they weren't used and to their great despair, had to use their stocks to fulfil orders for PPE coming in from abroad, whilst our own frontline workers were poorly protected.

Many many mistakes. Lets hope the government have learned from them and maybe get their advice from a wider set of sources.

Day 83 of Coronavirus lockdown, give or take a day

Wow, that's a long time! Losing track of the days a bit. The government seems to be wavering this way and that. As of my last post, certain years (reception, 1 and 6) were due to return to school with the rest of primary back in school before the summer. A bit of resistance from parents and wholehearted opposition from the unions who want 100% risk-free environment to be guaranteed, which of course is not possible. So now the government say other years will not return, and that secondary pupils 'may' return in September. 

Independent schools are hopping mad. Several really ancient ones have closed already. There seem to be arbitrary rules about what percentage of pupils are allowed to return into class which, since the independents already have smaller class sizes. So allowing 25% of a class which, when full, only numbers 15 is quite different to 25% of a class of 35 pupils. The independents are challenging the government (cannot recall how) but they plan to have all years return to school in September and putting in place their own track and trace processes as well as hygiene measures etc.

Academies are also aiming to get back. This ludicrous 2m social distancing rule is making everything so much more difficult. Businesses are on the verge of going bust because they cannot operate with that sort of constraint. Schools will struggle too - they are doing awful things like having kids in little social bubbles and trying to keep them apart in the playground. To be honest, it feels like we have this dreadful disease, and we are using it as an excuse to punish our children by isolating them from their friends and impeding their education so that we can be absolutely confident that they will not catch it asymptomatically and inadvertently pass it on to us. What a society!

As for the 2m rule, aparently the govt is considering reducing it to match up with WHO guidelines of 1m. That is what many other countries have and they have no great outbreaks. But they are going to take 3 weeks to think about it! How many hospitality businesses will close in the interim. How many thousands of staff will lose their livelihoods. It doesn't bear thinking about. 

Then you have the discredited Professor Ferguson who piped up, about a week ago, saying something like the fatalities would have been halved had we locked down a week earlier. Fortunately the SAGE papers are being made available and it turns out that he was on SAGE when they definitely did not recomment that Boris Johnson initiate the lockdown. Quite the reverse, they recommended that social distancing measures (which in now seems were having a measurable affect based on when the peak occurred) be continued. Professor Ferguson's imperial college paper which put the frighteners on everybody by suggesting that if no changes to behaviour were undertaken, 200,000 fatalities might occur also mentioned the word lockdown only once, and in the context that we should not need to impose it. 

The Imperial College code for the program was eventually released. That was a joke! It originally consisted of one long line of code (bad coding practice) and they held off releasing it until they'd had time to improve it a little (but not much). Nevertheless, when other universities (Edinburgh?) tried to run it, they found that the same input variables could produce estimated fatalities that varied by 80,000 between one run and the next. i.e. the model was worse than useless. And this was the thing that scared the government into imposing lockdown.

I can see how it helped for the first 3 weeks. Everyone was scared that the NHS would be overwhelmed like the health service in Italy.

Well it wasn't. So we should have started to release lockdown much sooner.

We now have young people (who would be hardly affected by the virus) who are ineligible for the furlough scheme due to their 0hour contracts committing suicide and leaving behind family and children. How desperate must you feel to do that. 

Yet still the government dithers. 

Finally there is a little more information at a regional level. Milton Keynes (my nearest big place) has had no new positive tests the entire month of June. The rate in the community is well below 1 in 1600. The virus is concentrated in care homes and hospitals. 

This morning I took a look at the coronavirus legislation. Turns out that this week they modified it to make it an offence to gather more than 6 people. Like that is going to make any difference to the thousands who are demonstrating #blacklivesmatter after the dreadful killing of George Floyd by a US police officer which was filmed and shared on social media.  There were even MPs joining in the illegal marches and protests in London. Feels like one rule for them and one for everyone else. If you are participating in a 'woke' campaign, then you can ignore the rules. 

Then there is the 14 day quarantine for everyone coming into this country from abroad. Everyone that is, apart from the people most likely to spread the virus - people who commute between countries like lorry drivers and people who live in one country yet work in another. Talk about shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. What is laughable is that New Zealand, where they have shut the borders and eradicated the virus, allowed two women to fly in from the UK on compassionate grounds (a parent was dying). Believe it or not, they were tested on arrival and found to have the virus! So we in the UK are exporting it! There is much lobbying from MPs and a court case from the airlines to try to get the government to reverse this stupid ruling. I hope they succeed and soon otherwise this will be the first Conservative government ever to completely trash the country's economy beyond all recognition. 

Day 54 of Coronavirus lockdown

Broad beans

The emphasis is on getting to work rather than staying home. It is not possible to eliminate risk entirely. I read recently that out of the 36000 or so deaths, most have been in the over 80s. A figure of something like 246 deaths of people under the age of 40 sticks in my mind. I think the odds of being injured in a road traffic accident are probably higher.

Well, actually as of last Monday, things have eased up a little in England. We can now go out as often as we want. The mantra has changed to "Stay alert, save the NHS, save lives".....or something like that. I don't actually remember apart from the Stay alert bit which many people seem to be confused by. So confused that the Govt. issued a detailed explanation of what they meant. I think many people are really enjoying being told exactly what to do, when to go out, when to stay in, how to interact with others. 

So we can now go to the park, have a picnic, sit on a bench. But we cannot go visit elderly relatives in care homes. That is a fiasco. The Court of human rights is looking into whether the human rights of care home residents have been infringed. More and more evidence is emerging that there was a directive in place to release elderly patients from hospital into care homes without testing if they were still infectious with COVID-19. Private care home owners have said they were able to refuse, but others were forced into taking in these patients and then it spread in the care home. 

Schools are supposed to go back in a phased way - reception, yr1 and yr 6 on 1st June. The unions are resisting it - I guess it is easy for teachers to refuse to go back as they are still being paid. Parents with school age children in deprived areas with insecure employment have fewer choices. The academies are defying the unions and are their schools back as they have more autonomy. So far the evidence seems to be that particularly young children neither catch nor spread the disease - out of 62 NHS nurseries that have been open during this period, only 3 have had any positive tests for COVID-19 and of those, there have been no instances of children passing it on. Mainly staff picking it up from outside I suspect. 

There is a lot on the news about the difference between different regions. It does seem to make sense. If you live somewhere where the virus is ramping up, then it makes more sense not to ease the restrictions. But if you live somewhere where the virus is under control - I think they had something like 26 new cases in London yesterday, then surely you should go back to something resembling normal. 

On a positive note - my broad beans have really grown well and I can even see little mini-beans forming. Hopefully they will stay blight free and we shall be eating some of our own before the season is over.

Red Mite......again

On Monday I had just sat down at my laptop after playing with my chickensin the run, getting them to jump on my knee to take treats out of my hands. I spotted the unmistakable little mite wandering across the bottom of my laptop screen. Recognised it instantly, even though it was not red, i.e. had not recently fed. I squished it

I trotted back to the chickens and looked carefully in the eglu and there was one little accumulation of red mites. Just in a corner between the roosting bars and the nest box. I looked very carefully, and could see others, but very few seemed to be moving. I dust the entire eglu with diatomaceous earth each time I clean it which, if the mites wander over it, dessicates and kills them. However I had become complacent. I wasn't checking the roosting bars as carefully as I should, and I wasn't washing everything each time, so I'd allowed the little mites to gain a foothold.

So I swung into action. Here are my steps for getting rid of red mite. I video'd myself during each step, and have made a recording probably as much for my own benefit as for anyone else. Nevertheless, I recall how worried I was the first time I had red mite so I hope this post and associated video will help any other backyard chicken keepers facing this teeny enemy for the first time. 

Day 1: Monday

Having discovered the mites, my priority was to remove the chickens to somewhere safe. Over the years I have acquired 4 eglus. I use only one in the main walk in run (WIR). I have another in the outdoor run. I have one set aside as a spare (in case the main eglu gets red mite) and I have another eglu plus tunnel permanently set up and empty as a hospital eglu. In this case, I removed the chickens from their red eglu in the WIR to the green hospital eglu. However to minimise the red mites that would transfer across with the chickens, I took each one out, one by one, and rubbed diatomacious earth into their bodies, focusing on chest, under wing, back and vent. 

Having cleared the WIR, I then dismantled the red eglu and moved it, and all the perching blocks, dustbaths, run enrichment toys etc out onto the grass. I sprayed everything, every nook and cranny, with mite killer. Any proprietory brand will do the trick. I have read that if you simply jet wash everything without first killing off the mites, you spread them all over your garden. 

I then left everything in the sun to sterilise.

Also, I took all my clothes off and put straight in the washing machine and had a shower to reduce the change of introducing red mite into the house.

Day 2: Tuesday

Today I cleared out all the bedding. This was a surprisingly tiring task. Previously I have made every mistake in the book. Clearing things without first killing the red mites, for instance - I once gave red mite infestation to my large black wheely bin once! That was disgusting. 

Again, total clothes change, wash clothes and shower before joining the household.

Day 3: Wednesday

Today is the fun day - jet washing. So enjoyable, yet I couldn't say why. I jet washed the spare pink eglu first - it was clean and clear of mites, but had got a little grubby as it had been stored outside. Then I jet washed the floor of the run and lastly the red eglu that had the mites. Before washing it, I checked carefully. There were still one or two little mites alive in the roosting bars. In fact, that was where they had been hiding out - the diatomaceous earth is a powder, and all the surfaces had been well covered, but underneath the bars was clear of powder and so an ideal breeding ground for the nasty little mites. 

I zapped them with mite killer before jetwashing the entire thing. I then took the door portion from the base portion and discovered that there were crevices there where mites could hide. Important to dismantle everything.

Having washed everything, I left it in the sun to try out. The red eglu has gone into storage ready for my next red mite problem. Provided it is unused for 8 months, any mites left on it (and I believe I've got rid of them all) will have died so it should be fine. 

Day 4: Thursday

Time to reassemble everything. I used Poultry shield on the pink eglu before reassembling it. I don't know if that will make much difference, but it can only help. I put everything back together in the WIR and dusted with diatomaceous earth. Then I moved the chickens back home. I took the opportunity to spray their legs with scaley mite spray just in case. 

Looking carefully at the green hospital eglu, I could see one or two clear mites (unfed) in the poop tray so there had obviously been some on the birds when I moved them across. Each time I handle the girls, I end up with up to 3 little mites on me. However they are all clear, unfed mites so I'm hoping that infestation will not build up either in the hen house, or in my home.

My plan moving forward is to clean and change the roosting bars and poop try every 3 days, and to reapply diatomaceous earth every day. I think the mites have a 5 day life cycle, so if I clean everything thoroughly every 3 days, and if in the interim the place is full of diatomaceous earth which should kill them, I'm hoping to eradicate them. 

If you don't have a spare eglu, then much of what I have done will not be possible. The first time I had red mite, I had only one eglu and I controlled it by cleaning regularly and spraying with mite killer. If they cannot find a little dark place to accumulate and breed, I think they will eventually die out. 

Here's an 18 minute video of the whole process

Day 39 of Coronavirus Lockdown

I submitted the revised version of my paper yesterday. It is much better and I'm very happy with it. That has taken up much more of my time than I expected, so not much blogging. The glorious April weather we have been having up until a few days ago broke and it has been pouring, so not too difficult to sit working on the paper.

While the sun has been out and it's been lovely and warm, I've really enjoyed walking in the woods and discovering more footpaths. I'm so fortunate to live here. It feels like CoronaVirus is a million miles away. Last Sunday we recorded ourselves playing the tune for a Morris dance called Hells Bells. This was to be the master music track so I uploaded it on YouTube. Then the dancers and musicians from our side, Wicket Brood, can record themselves dancing or playing along to it and we can post it as a video on our Facebook page. Stuart, a brilliant melodion play in our band who has also demonstrated spectacular video editing skills is editing all the footage down. I can't wait to see how it looks.

After recording ourselves in the courtyard playing our instruments, we recorded ourselves doing a bit of the dance, then we recorded ourselves at the end of the garden. As we did so, a couple of ladies and a dog walked past in the field at the end. There is no footpath on the field, but one of the ladies said she was from the victorian house up the hill and owned the field. It was lovely to meet our neighbours in such an odd way (we were in full Morris kit with face paint and everything). She said they heard the lovely music and came along to see what it was. She invited us to come for their midsummer celebrations. So, Coronavirus can be a great way to meet new people.

 

Other news, well Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds had a baby boy on Wednesday morning - 29th April. I wonder if they will call him Tom after the veteran who has raised £26million by walking round his garden in Marston Mortaine, not far from here, who was 100 years old on 30th April. They did a spitfire flyby for him which was lovely. Boris is back, but the noises from government are that this lockdown is likely to continue. Recent surveys suggest that 60% of British people would feel anxious and uncomfortable about going out if the restrictions were removed.

That number doesn't include me! I'd be out like a shot. I know somebody who has the virus. He is in his 30s and on day 12 of the disease. It sounds unpleasant, but not unbearable. It seems to me that the choice is to wreck the economy by keeping able-bodied people and school children at home, yet coping with a huge toll of elderly people in care homes, just in case we catch it.

It sounds like the Govt are considering options for lifting the restrictions. Financially, it is getting dire. I've read that 1 in 6 retail businesses are not going to reopen. British Airways are making 12,000 staff redundant. Ryan air and Easyjet are looking to do similar, focus being on pilots and air crew. People are being asked to take pay cuts. Others are furloughed at 80% up to a fairly low ceiling, so many families are wondering how they are going to survive economically.

I read an interesting article today in the Telegraph, written by an American, that suggested that lockdown is not the best course of action. I find it quite convincing, especially since here in the UK we failed spectacularly at protecting our most vulnerable elderly people in care homes. Mass testing and tracking and tracing as outlined by the Government is very welcome, but this should have been attempted much earlier, and the social care sector really needs to be treated as part of the NHS, not siloed, making elderly people into some sort of second class citizen.