Is everything up for grabs in a post-coronavirus world? Perhaps because we are all desperate to find upsides to this grim period, many people optimistically hope the crisis will help us find new priorities. I do, too. But I have some caveats.
Some imagine that the aftermath of the virus will deliver political changes that have previously not won popular support.
For example, Corbynistas are excited that state aid may become the norm with Rishi Sunak’s proposals to pay furloughed staff and help struggling companies. Others suggest that our new-found reverence for frontline healthcare staff means that there will never be any threat to the NHS – although this might mean even the mildest critiques of health service shortcomings will be off the table.
Boris Johnson’s particular praise for two nurses – from New Zealand and Portugal – is cited as proof that the Tories’ immigration rules will be dumped or that we should row back from leaving the EU.
Extinction Rebellion-style eco-activists seem to hope that lockdown-life means that we can live with less economic activity. Many civil libertarians, me included, worry about the normalisation of a trade-off between health and security, at the expense of liberty.
I suspect many of these predictions may be short-lived, post-lockdown. However, we can reflect on what we might want to change and commit to embracing some lessons moving forwards.
Let’s vow to remember issues that we now have a heightened awareness of. One might be to not neglect those people and social conditions that have been made visible in recent weeks. Until recently, many workers (often low-paid and ‘unskilled’) were seemingly invisible to those who manage society. I was struck early on, when we’d been instructed to work from home where we could, how many of my peers in the media and professional classes kept asking who all the people were on the Tube. They seemed oblivious to the millions of people whose jobs could not be conducted by Zoom or Skype.
Gradually, more people have realised that large numbers have to leave their homes and go to work so that the rest of us can receive our Amazon parcels, have electricity, running water and the internet.
I’m gratified that those who were only recently dubbed patronisingly ‘left behinds’, or disparaged as the UK’s own ‘low information’ deplorables, are now lauded. And so they should be, because they are risking their health and working damned hard in less glamorous parts of the economy to allow the rest of society to function, even in lockdown.
Councils, of course, know these workers exist as they employ many of them (whether directly or providing outsourced services). But let’s be honest: you are more likely to have received accolades and substantial remuneration as a diversity manager or sustainability officer than someone who empties the bins.
And while it’s positive that – at last care workers are receiving plaudits, they have in general been treated with disdain, often enduring abysmal working conditions in a Cinderella service.
The elderly we now seek to shield are rarely treated as a political priority. This new focus on the bravery of care workers, coping with the cruelties of a virus that is so lethal to the aged, should not stop us being humble enough to admit that previous neglect – often by local authorities – may have exacerbated the situation. So let’s remember, post-pandemic, that this is not good enough.
Local authority staff are key to the delivery of the Government’s COVID-19 response. There’s some fantastic work in community hubs. Hats off to those who ensure we don’t forget the homeless, or kids in care. Three cheers for those who administer information on furloughing and support for SMEs.
However, some local government roles are less helpful in building civic solidarity. Dishing out fines, hectoring strollers in parks, closing green spaces: all this seems almost second nature to local government officials schooled in public space protection orders, now over-zealously policing public behaviour.
A reminder to those local authority staff about the people who need parks today. That family playing frisbee in East London’s Victoria Park may well be council residents briefly escaping overcrowded, cramped households that are a result of the paucity of social housing. Meanwhile, underpaid essential workers may well live in tower block flats, without direct access to countryside rambles or sprawling gardens. That woman sitting on the park bench catching some sunshine might well be a colleague on her way back from gruelling home visits to dementia sufferers living in isolation.
Rebuilding communities and civic bonds will be essential in future months. Councils should take a lead. To do so, we will need some new priorities. Non-essential work? Officious and coercive measures that assume the worst of local citizens? Essential work? Rewarding those invisible frontline workers and recognising their service long after the virus is defeated.
Claire Fox is director of the Academy of Ideas and a former MEP