This has probably been the most challenging year of our lives for everybody under the age of 75. Those of us in that demographic have never lived through a national, or even worse a global threat to mankind, until now. Here in the UK we have lost tens of thousands of people in the first wave, and watch the second wave gain pace with every passing day. It’s an unbearable situation and one that has done so much collateral damage to our society, damage that will have far reaching consequences for the future. The UK is no longer “United”, with deep divisions on a regional basis taking the national crisis to a whole new level. In England we had the whole North versus South argument, driving the divisions ever deeper. From a personal perspective, I think even our “Britishness” is at risk and whilst the racist element amongst us will blame uncontrolled immigration, that simply isn’t true, it’s just a convenient place to lay the blame. On the political front, Boris is being roundly accused for his personal and his parties failure to get Coronavirus under control, but what major European country has? The truth is none of the other parties in the UK would have fared any better, and all of them are equally guilty of failing to work in a collaborative manner for the greater good of our country. It’s all about point scoring, being smart after the fact and acting in a divisive manner; perhaps this is the central issue, our national leaders have never been called upon or experienced a need to put these insular points to one side and focus on the country’s common needs.
Where once our unified togetherness would have played a huge part in our response to the pandemic, the ever increasing fractures across our national and regional boundaries has had a devastating effect on the impact of COVID-19. As a consequence, our losses will inevitably be higher.
It’s highly unlikely that this divisive drive for independence, in the case of Scotland, or greater autonomy for Wales and the major English regions will diminish, so I guess this type of disjointed, weakened and poorly executed response to major incidents is something we will have to become used to. The potential impact of this is extremely worrying; as I have always said “we are better together”, but that’s a purely British viewpoint
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