As I type, James O'Brien on LBC is asking why the right-wing press finds it so easy to attack public employees (teachers, doctors, nurses, binmen, etc.) as being enemies of the people. The latest set of villains are the teacher unions and, by implication, all teachers, as we can see on the front page of the "Daily Mail" today. He is also (rightly) pointing out that teachers have good reason to be mistrustful of the government, following the deceptive way our political leaders have behaved over the rate of coronavirus fatalities in care homes. There is no doubt that the Right - of all shades - are aiming to politicise the lifting of the lockdown.
I first saw a sign of this when an article from "Spiked" magazine was posted on Facebook. The author - the editor, Brendan O'Neill - launched into a diatribe against an amazing variety of targets, all of whom support the need for lockdown. These include the Labour Party, Piers Morgan, the TUC, "loving leftists and millennial media types" and anyone who supports lockdown, all of whom are engaged in some apparent campaign not to let people go back to work, and are intimidating the present government. O'Neill says:
"I know I’m meant to be scared of Covid-19. But I’m far more fearful of the lockdown fanatics."
He goes on to say:
"Sadly, the government seems increasingly incapable of withstanding pressure from the fearmongers in the media and cultural elites. And so it backed down. The lockdown will stay."
What we should note here is the fact that a continued lockdown was advocated by leading scientists and doctors, including those well-known fanatics of the British Medical Association. O'Neill omits to mention the rising death rate, the nursing home debacle and the risk of a new surge of infection, should the lockdown be relaxed. Instead, he bursts a blood vessel trying to minimise the effects of Covid-19:
"... coronavirus is proving manageable. It has not overwhelmed our health systems. It is not the
plague. It is mild or even asymptomatic in most people. Society can handle it."
Brendan "No Problem" O'Neill
Now, I was reassured that Mr O'Neill was a lone crank - but he is not. He has a kindred spirit in the ex-"Strictly" dancer and MEP, Ann Widdecombe. Ms Widdecombe has joined the debate by bombastically declaring on GMB:
"The former Tory minister and Brexiteer insisted ‘young and healthy’ Britons should return to work as soon as possible and use public transport to get to and from their workplace...
If we don’t get the economy going there are going to be huge long-term health problems as well as economic problems.”
And so we glimpse another cause celebre of the Right: get the lazy workers back into work asap. I am sure that every profit-hungry employer would have been delighted to read of Ms Widdecombe's outburst. Other enthusiasts would include the people who are planning to attend anti-lockdown protests this coming weekend. The Guardian says:
"Flyers for around 60 protests to be held in parks in cities such as Manchester, Leicester and Southampton have circulated online, produced by the little-known “UK Freedom Movement” which aims to say “no to the new normal and no to the unlawful lockdown”.
Disturbingly, the police are concerned that the Extreme Right are becoming involved. Jayda Fransen, the ex-Britain First deputy leader, is suspected of being behind flyers for these illegal gatherings. As the Scottish "Daily Record" says:
"No one has officially taken responsibility for the leaflets...Fransen has been linked to it through a firm she set up on Companies House on April 30".
It is becoming clear, then, that the far-Right and alt-Right see lockdown as an opportunity to be exploited. Spearheading this is the Daily Mail, whose aforementioned front page is attacking the teacher unions, resorting to a squalid ad hominem attack upon the NEU leader, Dr Mary Bousted. We should expect a lot more of this in the near future, with continued attacks upon teachers and, when the right-wing media see the need, on other public sector workers. Richard Littlejohn, in today's Mail, is having a go at the police. Who, one wonders, are the real fanatics in this whole sorry affair?
Lastly, and I thank James O'Brien for this, let us remind ourselves that the Tory politicians who stand on their doorsteps and applaud NHS workers are the same individuals who, several years back, opposed pay rises for NHS doctors and nurses.
As a retired teacher and a serving school governor, I fully support the teacher unions in their concern for a safe return to schools. If the unions are being attacked by the right-wing media for this, they must be doing the right thing.
Is hypocrisy on the syllabus at Eton?
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