Leakage.

Covid19 relies on leakage. In one person it either kills and/or is extinguished in less than two weeks, not counting convalescence. In the first four days you don’t know you’ve got it and your not contagious, after that you are but severely hampered by feeling like shit. But it sure as hell knows how to leak from one person to another. Somehow in the face of this one exploit our current government looks like a confused geriatric Dodo. Several million travellers entered the UK un-quarantined after we knew it was leaking world wide. Huge leak. After a further leaking delay we went into lock-down which was also leaky because we could go shopping etc. After three months we’ve got the leaking steady at about one for one which in itself is dangerously close to exponential leaking. And now in a reckless attempt to make this whole governmental mess appear successful we’re being offered more opportunities to leak. And this is probably a month before we have a workable test-trace-whatever thing. Another huge leak forward.

It’s not that politicians are stupid it’s that they have totally the wrong skill set for dealing with a pandemic. They are trained in self-confidence, privilege, rhetoric and parliamentary procedure. They have no understanding of the scientific method, real world problem solving, how the majority of us live and in this case the vital importance of timing. They are far closer to actors living off approval than other professions that live off results. They have converted any expert ‘advice’ unknowingly into a fragmented muddle primarily aimed at making their performance look good to the audience. So what have we learnt? It’s nice having a slower paced life rather than frenetic pressure. Zoom etc makes working from home more viable than we thought. Far less traffic is a godsend and the air feels cleaner. The garden’s looking amazing in the sunshine. We can get so many ‘home’ things done. Fashion’s not that important. We know how courageous and valuable our NHS is. Celebrities at home are no different to us. We’ll know what to do when the next pandemic comes. And possibly most important of all, we know if we sleep walk into a poor, corrupt Parliament people will die and our kids will pay for it for decades.

Yesterday I watched the final race in the 2016 British Superbikes series. It was a titanic struggle between two guys showing ultimate skill, commitment and bravery. The winner was drained and in tears and the loser was the first to congratulate him. They had brought out the best in each other. It’s like that in sport; it’s honest. Our Parliament is corrupt because it’s not like that in our politics. It has become, ‘who can dupe the populous best’, and honesty can’t win at that game.