Mockdown Britain In Crisis: When Can Marcus Rashford Take Over?

Greetings from South West Plague Island. 

We are ruled by a government that promised to take back control, but instead handed over full control to a killer virus. We have the highest Covid-19 death toll in Europe and the deepest recession of any major global economy. Our government feeds poor children with scraps, and they hand out multi-million Pound contracts to their friends and political donors, with no tendering process. The opposition party leader has the likeability of toothache, the charisma of a flannel, the politics of a social conservative, and has spent more time attacking his own party members than he has spent holding this abominable government to account. Occasionally, he’ll throw a few punches towards the Tory benches, but it’s usually 3 months after everyone else has got there first.

Keith be his name. He’s still behind in most of the polls.

Tell me something. When you go to the shop to buy your essentials, or when you take your dog for a walk, does it *really* feel like we are living through a third national lockdown? 

Does it feel like a vast majority are complying with the most basic of instructions? 

Do the roads look and feel like they did back in March 2020? 

Do you remember the previous restrictions? Your local tip was closed, the schools were near empty, playgrounds were closed for four months - things didn’t feel anywhere near normal, because things weren’t normal. 

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not wanting my basic rights to go from a to b to be restricted. I’d love to meet up with the old dog walking friends, my son wants to get on with playing football for his team, he’s desperate for a haircut, my daughter wants to go and see her boyfriend up North. Believe me, these restrictions come at a cost. 

But I’m not a Covid-denier, I’m not one of the anti-lockdown crowd, led by musical ‘legends’ such as Right-Wing Said Fred, or people that believe the billionaire Queen is in fact a shapeshifting lizard, or even the renowned virologist, epidemiologist, and ‘eccentric’, Piers Corbyn. 

Please don’t put your life in the hands, of a has-been pop band, and throw it all away. 

Frankie Goes To Hollywood were a million times better if you ask me.

If you’re gonna start a revolution from your bed, I’m with you, because that means you are doing your bit to stay the fuck at home. 

While I might not have the scientific qualifications of Nigel ‘The English mutant’ Fashage, or the deep understanding of how a virus spreads through a community, like Professor Laurence ‘voice of an angel’ Whatsisname PhD, or the wisdom of Alan from Basildon #QAnon #DarrenGrimes4PM #MAGA, I have managed to cobble together my own little theory. 

If you don’t mix with other people, from other households, and if you only go out when you really need to, and maybe if you don’t think your children’s teacher is a babysitter, we can stop the halt of this vicious and merciless killer, long enough to get the NHS vaccination programme fully operational. Remember, this is the NHS leading the vaccination machine, and it’s got absolutely nothing to do with Dido Harding. It will have its problems, of course, but it is a flicker of light in a very dark Plague Island

Stay home, protect your family, your friends, *and* your NHS, and save lives. A few months is nothing in exchange for a lifetime of near-normality. We might never see full normality again, but going to visit your nan in Newcastle, or your football team in Norwich, can be part of the new normal.

I’m not usually one for following government advice. I’m not following it now, because I am going further than what they suggest. Their restrictions are lame, ineffective and will do very little to halt the spread of the English mutant strain that is currently out of control.

The government has had multiple opportunities to toughen the current restrictions, but they have failed to do so. Population controller Johnson is afraid of his own backbenchers, and the official opposition are about as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike. 

Now of course, a huge element of self-responsibility applies here. While the politicians must take the blame for the crisis we find ourselves in, we the people must take responsibility for our own behaviour - and I believe a majority of us do exactly that. 

1,564 tragic Covid-19 deaths were added to the devastating total just yesterday. This is the highest number we have ever recorded. Nearly 50,000 new Covid positive tests were reported the day before - around ten times the number reported during the first peak, way back in April last year.

I have a simple question:

If the new variant of Covid is considerably more infectious than the first strain that ripped through our lives, why are the new rules more relaxed than they were last March?

Ministers have been asked this question. Priti Patel was asked just yesterday, but she gave an answer that seemed like lots of random words, delivered in a random order. 

Perhaps she didn’t hear the question. 

The government has no answers. 

The NHS, particularly in London and the South East, is overwhelmed with Covid-19 patients. 

Daily Covid-19 hospital admissions have quadrupled since early December. 

Bed occupancy is rising towards the highest in Europe with 50 out of every 100,000 people in the population in hospital with coronavirus. 

International data show that the equivalent weekly rate of admissions per 100,000 is 17 in Denmark, which is high in Europe, 11 in France and nine in the US.

Boris Johnson only likes to make international comparisons when it looks favourable for Britain, but it hasn’t looked favourable for the people of Plague Island all that often over the last 10 months, so he likes to avoid international comparisons wherever possible. 

The reason for this, aside from it highlighting the glaring inadequacy of his response to the Coronavirus crisis, is because Johnson cannot stand scrutiny. 

Johnson’s self-entitlement leaves him believing he is somehow beyond accountability, after all, Johnson himself thinks he is above the law. 

Johnson has spent several decades lying, cheating, conniving, dividing, hating and manipulating - go and check the receipts for yourself - but Boris Johnson sees all of this as entirely inconsequential, for he is Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, born to rule. 

Accountability, and real scrutiny of a Prime Minister has never been this important during my lifetime. 

In many cases, his decisions will be the difference between life and death, and let’s be honest, the only thing Johnson has successfully managed to do during this entire catastrophe has been to catch Covid-19, shortly after boasting about shaking hands with patients on a Covid ward. 

That’s the level of ignorance and ineptitude that we are dealing with. Johnson’s inability to lead wouldn’t be quite so mind-blowing had he not spent the best part of five decades preparing for the job that he truly believes is his entitlement. 

I’m like many of you. I look at the images of overflowing hospitals, I see the images of the disgraceful food parcels being sent out to some of Britain’s poorest families, I see the soaring death toll, and I see a supposed lockdown being little more than a mockdown. And I’m left with just one final question to ask you: 

Can we see if the ‘leader of the people’s opposition’, Marcus Rashford, can multitask a bit more than he is already? 

Keep safe everyone. 

Rachael x

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