Saturday, 11 April 2020

Through The Institutions

The daily figure is only of those who die in hospital, so the real toll is well over one thousand every day. We are going to be locked down for a long time yet. And with the amount of reading on which I am catching up, that suits me down to the ground.

In general, it baffles me why the monarchy keeps sweet the people on whom it has that effect. But I accept that it does. And the Queen's broadcast in the midst of the current crisis has saved the monarchy for another 100 years. 

Without this, then it might have been in far more serious trouble. But instead, if they really are going to bring back Spitting Image, then look out for the Queen, or rather for her absence. She already did not appear in The Windsors.

Meanwhile, the National Health Service has never had a healthier future. It has simply taken over the private healthcare system, which it will not be giving back. At a designated time every week, the nation stands at its doors and claps the NHS, ringing bells and so forth. There is no reason to assume that this practice is ever going to end.

Now to get PPE and proper pay for NHS staff, but that is just a matter, as everything else is, of putting the idea into the heads of the people who controlled Britain's permanent governing party.

The flag of privatisation could continue to flutter over the dung heap on the other side. But who would even notice? That party clearly has a death wish. Far more wisely, the monarchy has saved itself precisely by allying and identifying itself with the NHS.

I am wary of comparisons between the present situation and the War. But the War made far more people aware of the need for universal and comprehensive healthcare, simply because they themselves suddenly needed the more expensive sort of medical treatment. The NHS became inevitable, and it duly appeared in all three manifestos in 1945.

Today, more and more people find themselves in the position of being told that they have to live on 63 quid a week, not available for five weeks, although they could always take out a loan to be deducted from it when it finally arrived. "No one can live on that," you say? Well, we have been trying to tell you that for quite some time. But now, you know it from your own experience. Change will follow.

The Budget of March 2020, and the Government's response to the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, have ended the era that began with the Budget of December 1976. The Centre is the think tank for this new era. Please give generously.

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