Dr Dan Goyal, an NHS consultant, yesterday said this: “What gets me is that Tory MPs could have made a difference in people’s lives – they could have lifted people out of poverty, healed the sick, helped educate our children, and provided us all with a better future. Instead, they just took and took and took some more. Never again!” On Christmas Day, there I am trawling social media and finding things that make me angry and, if the truth be known, I’m happy that I am still angry about them. Because Dr Goyal is right. When the Conservatives formed a government in 2010, in which some Lib Dems took jobs, the inexorable rise in the number of food banks begun. And by their actions, the government has made food poverty worse under each successive prime minister, culminating in the disastrous premiership of snake-oil salesman Rishi Sunak. They’ve set up the NHS to fail, schools are literally falling down. The stole the future of so many. As the good doctor points out, they took from us, sometimes they stole.
I found myself watching King Brian’s Christmas speech yesterday afternoon and as a moderate republican, I found that I was occasionally nodding along with what he had to say. Granted that Brian’s speech was cluttered with references to the religious side of Christmas, but I wondered if he did that in order to avoid criticism for being political.
He said: “We need to build on existing ways to support others less fortunate than ourselves.” Brian talked in generalities, as he always does, but what are the existing ways? Low wages, an inadequate benefits system, the cost of living crisis in general, a lack of affordable housing and all the rest of it. What else could Brian mean?
Then he referred specifically to me, praising the work of volunteers, calling us a “selfless army of people” who form an “essential backbone of our society“. He went on: “My heart and my thanks go to all who are serving one another; all who are caring for our common home; and all who see and seek the good of others, not least the friend we do not yet know. In this way, we bring out the best in ourselves.” My heart soared with the praise. Let’s face it. I only volunteer in order to get praise from the king and to please God. I’m joking. But that the old boy is at least aware of the fucked up mess this country is in, that’s something, I suppose.
Drill deeper into Brian’s words and there’s another simple truth, whether he meant to express it or not, and that’s the fact that this country functions to a degree only because millions of people do stuff for free. Not people like me who give three or four hours a week, but those hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions, of full time unpaid carers, some of whom could do with being cared for themselves and others who are literally young children. You don’t have to investigate too much to find people who are society’s sticking plaster.
So, it was good to be reminded by a prominent NHS consultant and King Brian that, to all intents and purposes, that it is love that keeps us together. And that’s what it is. The hate, division and culture wars stoked deliberately by cynical here today, gone tomorrow politicians works, but only to a point. In the end, there’s one thing they can’t take away and that’s our very humanity. If the filthy rich head of wildly dysfunctional bunch of oddballs, known as the royal family, can see what’s wrong, then maybe there is some hope after all?
It comes down to choices in the end. If we want a better country, one in which we love and care for our fellow citizens, then we can have it. If we want to carry on to hell in a hand cart, we can do that too. It really is that easy.
