Honestly, calm down.

You find out who your friends are in a crisis, an aphorism which has been tested and found true over this last week. Yes, it’s just a week in lockdown and already the usual malcontents are making a nuisance of themselves. If it was only themselves they were harming by their refusal to listen to the news rather than our partisan media’s interpretation of the news then it wouldn’t be so bad. But many people rather sweetly lap up every morsel of fear they are fed.

It is noticeable that it is the same old gang of malcontents who are determined to wreck everything. The people religiously opposed to Brexit, fervently in support of open borders, actively duped by climate propaganda and imagining themselves to be ‘the good guys’ are up to their old tricks. No government policy goes unchallenged – a sage stance, you might imagine – but this is nothing to do with wisdom. These people openly spread lies, aided and abetted by certain news outlets who believe it is their place to make the news, rather than just report it.

My social medium of choice is Twitter, mostly because I can’t really work all the others and really can’t be arsed trying to be relevant in more than one place. And my blog is more by way of escape from all the screeching; for screeching there is. The usual suspects: Carole Cadwalladr, Piers Morgan, Zoe Williams, Marina Hyde, Owen Jones, Ash Sarkar [the list goes on and on] are busily wreaking social havoc out there. And they have a ready-made audience. Some are gleefully predicting the downfall of capitalism; others are just making hay in the somewhat ironic sunshine we are experiencing right now.

But reality is more prosaic. For every self-referential poll they put up to demonstrate how people who think as they do want more of what they want, the public-at-large have a dozen ‘fuck-offs’ ready in reply. For every urban anarchist call to arms, several thousand ordinary people cock a deaf ear. For every absurd insistence that the government is taking us toward a police state, a million citizens see only sensible precautions and condemn those who flout them.

Playing politics with sensitive issues has long been seen by the general public as sordid at best and at worst downright despicable, sinister, even. More and more people must surely be coming round to this view as every utterance by the forces of opposition – official and self-appointed – is seen as the partisan propagandising it really is. But I have optimism that there is opposition to this opposition and it is seated in the British spirit so hated by the Leftwaffe.

None of the numerical ‘facts’ that are broadcast by either side are untainted by bias and all of them are projections based on imperfect data. Even after all the dead are counted there will be uncertainty. But one thing is certain and that is that, so far, the numbers of dead pale into insignificance compared to the regular seasonal numbers, even if you ascribe every ‘excess’ death directly to coronavirus Covid-19. It might be different had the government not acted as it did, but we will never know. So put aside unverifiable facts and ask yourself a few simple questions:

Can you – seriously – imagine that a British government would deliberately pursue the worst possible policy to control the virus? Do you – seriously – think the Tories are intent on decimating the population; and if so, why, to what possible end? Do you imagine for one second that a nexus of Jeremy Corbyn, Diane Abbott and John McDonnell would not be using this temporary crisis as a device to usher in Marxist socialism, the transition to full communism? Your response to these questions may well indicate whether you are part of the solution or part of the problem. 

So just… calm down. Do as you’re told, take all the help available and ask for more if you need it, and trust in the British national character to see us through. Take a few calming breaths and accept what you cannot change. Use this lockdown time to give your psyche a thorough audit, paying particular attention to your ability to sift out the truth from the conspiracy theories. And when it is all over – a few weeks, probably – ask yourself what you, personally, can do to prepare for the next lockdown when it comes. Because, as sure as eggs is eggs, this won’t be the last time.

Most of all, you've let yourselves down

I don’t know what the latest death toll is; it is certainly far fewer than deaths from other, better know, viral illnesses and certainly far fewer than Piers Morgan is determined it must be. But one thing I am certain about is that I couldn’t be less concerned about it. You can’t see it, you can’t detect it in others unless they are symptomatic, but they are infectious before that and no amount of handwashing is going to save you once it gets into your workplace, home, school, etc. You’re likely to get it; accept that.

But not all winds blow ill and if nothing else comes of it, I hope – beyond any realistic expectation of realisation – that people learn a little something about this species about which we are so precious. It turns out, for all the glorious history of endeavour, all the science, art and great thought, we are just base animals at heart, acting on instinct and motivated by fear. The great manipulators have always known this; the new pretenders think they are learning it from scratch, but all of us can see it in the end.

If you needed any concrete evidence, it must surely be the toilet roll debacle. Not water, not food, not even medicines, but the humble bog roll has become totemic of both our preparation for a siege and our inability to think beyond tomorrow. At first it was just funny, watching the idiots on the rampage, but this weekend it became sinister with scenes of people waiting outside large supermarkets with empty trolleys; standing in line just to see the empty shelves at first hand. (Incidentally, such gatherings would be, one would think, ideal situations for the virus to spread.)

Literally nobody knows what the eventual number of affected will be, nor the mortality rate, but suddenly everybody is an expert. The BBC led with a story that 229 ‘scientists’ had signed a letter demanding the government do more. It later transpired that not one of these experts had any knowledge or understanding of the disease, nor any grasp of the strategy being followed. In short they brought nothing to the debate except opposition. When we then learned that a large number of signatories were from an institution which describes itself as being situated in ‘vibrant’ East London, the penny dropped.

It is morbid, obscene, the way some wish to hype up the danger in a form of macabre thrill-seeking. It is ugly and venal and unbecoming. Instead of listening to the actual government advice and taking heed, many (and you know they are remainers, climate nuts and social justice warriors, who have a demonstrable dearth of critical thinking skills) are accepting at face value the crap spouted by Corbyn, Morgan and others who are deliberately misrepresenting the events and measures being taken.

At times of national crisis – climate isn’t one, Covid-19 looks like it will be – the reasonable person acts in his own self-interest, takes steps to defend his family and looks out for others who may not be able to do so. Communities should be sensibly coming together, not waging wars of words and putting in place their own support networks, not expecting the government to anticipate their every need. As much as you might wish it, there will not be millions dead in the UK; I doubt we’ll hit millions worldwide. But, just in case, I have plenty of bog rolls…