Once more unto the beach…
As the media turns roundly upon the masses, we have to question who is really to blame if there is a further peak – the people for doing what they’ve been allowed to do and head out for a day in the sun, or a government that sends out mixed messages, flips and flops, and is ignoring the science.
I live in a holiday resort. I know what it’s like to try hobbling up a narrow cliff path, attempting to keep a safe social distance from the oncoming day-trippers, intent on a well-deserved day out from lockdown madness. I also know that they are simply doing what they’ve been told they can do, even encouraged to do.
And as I watch the responses across the media to the crowds in Bournemouth, I wonder what drives these hordes amassing on our coastline. Do they, like some, just believe it’s all hype, it’s just another winter flu? Is it the Theory of the Commons coming into play – if everyone else is going to do it, then why shouldn’t I? Is it like that elusive diet where one minor transgression causes you to throw everything out the window and binge to your heart’s content? Or is it simply being blind to the risks, understanding that the chances are that they won’t catch it, but if they do the probability is that they’ll actually get no symptoms, or maybe just minor ones, that they aren’t likely to be one of the ones that will actually die?
Or is it simply the case that thousands of people, after months of lockdown, on furlough, or working from home, or now jobless, with the kids still not back at school, knowing they are unlikely to get their foreign holiday this year, looked at the bright sunny summer’s day, knowing they may well not see one like it again for some time to come, simply decided to go out and have some fun?
They weren’t contravening any rules, as they packed their buckets and spades in to the back of the car, after all, even the pubs will be opening in a week or so.
If they were breaking the rules by heading down to the coast they could have been turned back, or even fined, but they weren’t.
And it is no surprise that our coastal resorts can’t cope with a semi-lockdown influx of thousands of tourists, they can barely cope with the crowds of day-trippers during normal times. And now the Great British media is looking down upon them and doing the government’s work of blaming them for any second peak that may yet come.
It doesn’t matter that we have listened to the PM boast about shaking hands with people who have the virus. That they defended their own man for going on a day trip, back when the lockdown was in full throe. It is unimportant that we have all watched MPs queuing up to vote in an orderly socially-distanced manner, only to disregard it in the areas where they thought no cameras were present. And it is irrelevant that we have watched the Health Secretary flout social distancing, in the Chamber.
The rules are there for others to be judged on, not the government.
And the rules keep changing. It’s all informed by the science, says the government. So they made plans to open the schools, but it can’t be done whilst following the rules. So they changed their minds, changed the dates, changed the rules a few times, and then finally decided that the rules needn’t apply to them.
And then, with one eye on the economy and the other on falling electorate support, they made plans to open our pubs and restaurants. But with two metre social distancing it can’t be done, proclaimed the industry, so they changed the rules again, and two metres became one-ish.
And the scientists have pointed out that it is still far too early for easing the lockdown and the risk of a second peak is far too high, and the great British public have had to muddle their way through a contradictory set of messages that continually change.
It is no longer about the science. It is highly dubious to suggest that much of what this government has ever done throughout this crisis has been about the science.
And so the crowds rush to the coast, only to arrive and find that they weren’t alone in thinking it would be a good law-abiding idea. They will also rush to the pubs in a week’s time, only to discover that everyone else will have had the same idea, and we will see pictures of crowds desperate for a pint, and the headlines will blame them, once again, for following the guidelines set by this dysfunctional government.
Let’s not let them blame the masses if there is a second peak, when there’s such little doubt where the real fault lies.