Less isolated

Here we go again. Writing a blog about BBC bias and then boasting that I don’t watch it. Well, I do watch some of it, more of which later. I have spent most of my life - say, at least half of it, being in a minority of one. (That covers opinion, ideology, ethnicity and lots of other stuff.)  Shall I name the ways? Perhaps another time.

This is leading up to one of those ‘housekeeping’ posts that bloggers have to do from time to time, usually when the comments are too sweary or too plain nasty.

Ha! I have been alone (in this blog) in supporting the lockdown strategy, one whose success is almost entirely reliant on a high degree of cooperation from the public. We know Lockdown not the only possible strategy on the table, but it’s the one that the government we voted for believes is in the country's best interest. 

Our experiment with Disqus seems to have deprived us of our most prolific commenter, but I think I’m right in saying that most of our regulars disagree with me on this topic.  I haven’t particularly engaged in the debate because (as I keep having to repeat) I am still of the opinion that it’s “too soon to know’.  I think the time for dogmatic criticism of the Government is not now. I am Mr Undecided and I’m sticking with it.

So, what’s all this a preamble to? It must be something. Okay, it’s Melanie Phillips. I don’t agree with her on absolutely everything - apart from her every word on Israel - but she too is in favour of the Lockdown approach. 

Look at this! The Times(£):

“Like every other country suffering from this pandemic, Britain faces a horrible choice between protecting the economy and safeguarding life and health. Its rate of death and serious illness from Covid-19 has been higher than most countries. The reason for that, along with other necessary criticisms about the government’s handling of this crisis, should wait until all the evidence is in.”

If you haven’t got access to the Times, I’m sorry. I don’t feel entitled to reproduce entire articles. (I did it once but I think I got away with it.)

“Yet among people for whom damage to the economy outweighs all other considerations, there’s no acknowledgement of Johnson’s complex balancing act. For such people, lockdown must end immediately. Some of them claim, moreover, that there never was any need for it in the first place. The virus, they say (with scant regard for either humanity or settled facts) poses no serious threat because it only kills relatively few old people or those who would have died this year anyway. By contrast, they say, Sweden has curbed the virus while suffering far fewer deaths than Britain, Italy or Spain without locking down its population, thus protecting its economy.”

Anyway, I feel a little less isolated now. 

As for the Disqus thing, I think the jury’s still out. We were hoping to attract a wider, livelier and more diverse disqussion below the line. We’ll wait and see what transpires.