Apart from the obvious, C also stands for Crisis.
Football is in crisis, the whole of sport is in crisis, the world economy, psychiatry, healthcare, the leisure industry, retail, airlines, governments, everything is in crisis.
But, more positively, C can also stand for Change and celebrities.
Change:
It has been made obvious to us that ‘unskilled’ workers are actually key to our society and its smooth operation; we would be stuffed without our delivery services, our supermarket delivery systems and transport drivers.
When This Thing is over, perhaps that recognition could lead to better working conditions and better pay for these key workers and structures put in place so that their masters are finally forced into paying proper taxes, as the workers themselves have to.
In June, 2017, this government shamefully cheered when they voted down a pay rise for NHS nurses, the same nurses whose skirts they are now hiding behind. Not much more needs to be said here about the changes required.
BAME citizens make up approximately 14% of the UK population, but also around a third of those seriously ill with coronavirus. Aside from the fact that they are disproportionately represented in areas of dense population and also poverty, they are also vastly over-represented in the NHS, where they make up at least 20% (some believe the figure is twice as high) of the workforce.
Indeed, the first 10 doctors who died of Covid-19, and two-thirds of the first 100 health and social care workers, were from ethnic minorities.
The UK’s attitude to immigrants was made clear in the Brexit vote, but maybe a change in attitude can come from this crisis and the fact that farmers are still flying in Romanians to pick their crops is telling.
The government has licensed a number of specialist recruitment firms, via the CLA, to recruit a nationwide land army. One such company is Concordia and their website is worth a visit.
Professional, expensive-looking and full of bullshit, It is impossible to find an easy way to register on their site for a job in your region, yet this company has managed to pick up a substantial fee from the government by spectacularly failing to do what they have been asked to do; get British workers working on farms. One reason is that they are not wanted; the farms want trained pickers who are prepared to live three to four in a hut and do not think we are up to it.
Indeed, they are not the only ones profiting from the government’s largesse. PPE manufacturers, virus testers, banks and landlords are all profiting from this crisis.
Homeowners have been given a three-month mortgage payment holiday and told not to evict tenants, yet they are telling their tenants there is no possiblity of a rental holiday for them and that, as they will be saving on holidays and lunch, they must pay rent in full and on time. My landlord even instructed his agents to ask me to prove I had the necessary funds to pay the next three months’ rent, and I had previously thought he might be the exception to the rule that all landlords are scumbags.
So, I am afraid there is not much day-to-day evidence of society coming together.
What about celebrities? I hear you ask. Surely they can bring us together.
Like saplings to sunlight, celebrities seek out fame, their twitter-modified DNA means they can’t help it, but there comes a time when enough is enough. And that time is now.
Celebrities love the NHS, of course they do; everyone does now, especially Boris, who is currently undergoing extensive reprogramming at Chequers.
In the most whore-hungry act of band-waggoning I have seen, Michael Ball has simultaneously jumped on both the Major Tom and NHS bandwagons.
Well-known scouser and musical botherer, Ball, has recorded a maudlin (is there any other kind) version of ‘You’ll never Walk alone’.
Pensioner, Tom Moore, may not actually be a Major, but I like to think David Bowie would consider him a hero.
He wanted to raise £1000 by walking around his garden 100 times before his 100th birthday on April 30th. He has currently raised £28 million. Phenomenal.
Michael Ball has roped this harmless, charming old man and the NHS Voices of Care into taking part in a video, in which Ball, takes centre stage, looking like a fat south-coast restaurant owner, accused of embezzlement, with images of the little people of the NHS dotted around his central portrait.
It is truly sickening and I bet Ball goes private for his underlying health issues.
Celebrities; leave our NHS alone…
