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Brits are all in the crisis together… unless you’re randy Professor Neil Ferguson
IT FEELS like a lifetime ago but it has only been seven weeks since the Prime Minister made the fateful announcement that saw overnight changes to our lives so extreme they initially seemed unimaginable.
Schools would shut, families would be separated, freedom of movement curtailed. All of us except key workers had to shut the front door on life as we knew it.
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The message was simple: Stay at home, even if that means you won’t see loved ones.
The reason we have all complied is because to ignore the guidance means risking other people’s lives.
So no wonder it has caused such a tremendous furore that Professor Neil Ferguson, the man heading up the scientific team at Imperial College, whose advice this edict was based on, seemed to think it applied to everyone else except him.
Prof Ferguson may not be a decision maker per se. But his guidance was clear: Lockdown was essential to prevent 500,000 deaths in the UK.
And it was that research the Government heeded when it implemented lockdown.
As you probably already know, Prof Ferguson quit his role as government adviser last week after it emerged that his married lover had visited his home on two occasions in March and April in a breach of the Government’s official guidance on lockdown and social distancing.
Like the chief medical officer in Scotland, Dr Catherine Calderwood, who resigned too after breaking her own rules, he found it just too hard to practise what he preached.
Some people were quick to point out it is no coincidence that this news about Prof Ferguson was leaked to the Press on the same day the UK death rate overtook Italy.
The death rate in the UK is shameful and must not be overlooked. But isn’t it far more likely that, rather than anyone in government, it was a neighbour who leaked this bombshell, an ordinary person who was completely fed up with being cooped up in their flat and seeing the bloke whose research caused the lockdown being visited by his married girlfriend and flouting the rules he helped to implement?
What is this lockdown all about if the guy who suggested it is not sticking to it?
Prof Ferguson’s explanation — before he promptly and rightly resigned — was that he’d had the virus so was probably immune.
But — and if I know this then surely a scientist must too — there is NO evidence that having had the virus guarantees immunity.
Also, what about his lover? And her husband? What if they have not yet had it and he is carrying the virus? What happened to the mantra stay at home. Protect the NHS. Save lives? Doesn’t it apply to him as well as the rest of us?
HARDSHIP & HEARTACHE
But, risks aside, the main principle at stake here is trust. If someone as well informed as Prof Ferguson, above, doesn’t think meeting his lover for a quickie is a risk, then I’m sure I’m not the only one asking: What is this lockdown business really about?
Does he think there should be one rule for the likes of him and another for the mugs — like us — because we can’t be trusted to make sensible decisions?
Or should the Government message have been different: It is safe to meet with people, as long as you are careful?
It’s either one or the other, right?
I’m not judging his decision to sleep with anyone he wants to sleep with. But bearing in mind the role he has played in interfering with my private life and freedoms, I might make an exception.
What is really, really annoying is that Prof Ferguson is suggesting that the country does one thing — involving a great deal of hardship and heartache for many — while he is letting himself off the hook.
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Since most of us are bending over backwards to abide by the rules, that’s hard to swallow.
If we are “all in this together”, maybe it means that Prof Ferguson thinks it’s safe for us to meet others outside of our household.
If he doesn’t believe in his own advice, why should we?
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Why she’s Joanna lovely
I have always loved Joanna Lumley. But I never loved her more than when I saw the pictures of her standing cheerily in the OAP queue outside Sainsbury’s in Battersea last week.
Who would have thought a few weeks ago that pasta, baked beans and loo roll would all be in short supply, and whatever was left in the supermarket we would be queuing for?
But there she was standing in line, just like the rest of us, and yet still happily letting people take selfies – socially distanced selfies, of course.
She looked great – happy and friendly, and she oozes class.
Most of us are miserable in the lockdown, and it doesn’t actually help that many celebrities are queuing up to tell us (from their distinctly privileged positions) how difficult their experience of lockdown is.
Meanwhile, lovely Joanna Lumley is queuing up with everyone else.
Not only that but she has a smile on her face and it’s easy to imagine that, were she to share her experience of lockdown, she would be finding a way to look on the bright side.
She is one of us, chatting to people and getting on with it, even though she is technically in a Covid-19 vulnerable age group category.
Clearly she has backbone, plus a can-do attitude and a get-on-with-it mentality. We should all be inspired.
Time fur rethink
This week we discovered that more than half of adults in the UK are being paid by the Government, as Chancellor Rishi Sunak outlined.
It doesn’t take an economist to conclude that this is . . . unsustainable.
For a start, let’s hope we have cancelled the foreign aid budget to help out.
But the big question is how to get furloughed and unemployed staff back into work. That might involve motivating people who would prefer not to work, changing workplaces so workers feel safe and helping people whose businesses have had to fold because they can’t be sustained.
But anyone fronting a company making millions in profit, or paying millions in dividends, should not be allowed to furlough staff.
It was meant for businesses with no other choice and it should be a last resort, rather than treated as free money.
Judi is always in Vogue
Talking of amazing women like Joanna Lumley who are well past what would once have been considered their prime (no doubt by men who are of a similar age), how wonderful is it that Judi Dench is on the cover of Vogue . . . at the age of 85.
It just goes to show that age is just a number. She has such grace and decorum. Just stunning.
PPE
It beggars belief, doesn’t it, that when it was discovered that millions of pieces of personal protective equipment in the UK’s stockpile were out of date, thousands more were hurriedly bought in from . . . a Turkish T-shirt salesman.
And guess what? That PPE has now been declared “useless”.
This is why I want business people involved in helping the Government.
We need their expertise and experience in procurement, logistics and quality control to help solve the many issues the Government is currently dealing with.
Personally, I would put Lord Wolfson in charge of this, he’s smart, level- headed, professional and understands all the processes as he has done it every day for the past 30 years with great success.
So give him a call for Pete’s sake.
Christine McGuinness
My husband was reading the paper the other day when he said: “Lucky b*****d, that Paddy McGuinness.”
When I asked him why, he didn’t reply so I looked over his shoulder at the photos of Christine McGuinness in a foil snakeskin bikini showing off her tan lines.
Apparently, she makes lovely banana bread.
So I guess it’s her baking skills my husband was referring to – right?
Dele pics a winner
There is no denying that the new, slimline, Adele does look incredible.
It just goes to show what getting in shape can do for your figure – but also your confidence.
I also like the fact that instead of issuing a load of airbrushed-to-within-an-inch-of-her-life pictures, as many celebrities would, she has posted some fun snaps taken with her mates.
I guess she is aware that the problem with airbrushing your photos to that degree is that people don’t recognise you when they see you in person.