Another Year Another Lock down.

To begin at the beginning, Happy New Year. How are you doing?

Perhaps you're reading this standing in a long queue shopping for the last wet wipes, or maybe you've decided that everything's gone to pot and you're staying under your duvet with your smartphone.

So Lockdown 3 is upon us but at least this time we are better prepared aren't we?

We have plenty of toilet paper, PPE is everywhere, we are awash with hand sanitiser, and we can now personalise the logos on our face masks. Oh and galloping over the hill to rescue us comes the coronavirus vaccine. All great news, so why do you and I still feel dejected, hacked off and furious?

Clearly, this pandemic was unexpected, and any government would have struggled to develop a coherent strategy for managing it. However, almost a year on, we still don't seem to have a plan other than relying on a vaccine with so many questions surrounding it: how long will it be effective, what happens if the virus mutates?
 

What we need is a clear plan with the critical steps identified; instead, we've got dithering, u-turns, over-promising, under-delivering, and ineptitude.

During this Government's first term in office, it has presided over 80,000 Covid related deaths, and that figure continues to grow: 

• Millions of people have lost their livelihoods 
• Huge numbers now rely on food banks 
• Children and young people face uncertain futures,
• The health service is in danger of being overwhelmed, 
• The leisure and entertainments industries are in ruins 

Add to this toxic mix the Brexit débâcle and the increasing threat from climate change, and we all have excellent reasons for feeling dispirited, frightened and infuriated.

The Government has promised that the vaccine will lead to the virus being brought under control and that life can then return to 'normal'. After so many broken promises, why should we believe this one?  

We need the Government to spell out what they intend to do to help us get through the next few months, aside from just continuing lockdowns. It also needs to roll out its long-term strategy to safeguard our well-being, get us off our collective knees and ensure our country's future economic prosperity. 

We need to see something similar to the Marshall Plan: which for those who don't know was an American initiative that started in 1948 to provide specific aid to Western Europe. The USA transferred over $12 billion (the equivalent of $130 billion in 2019) in economic recovery programmes to Western European economies after World War 2.

St Paul's cathedral during the blitz

The Plan operated for four years and involved rebuilding war-torn regions, removing trade barriers, and modernising industry to improve European prosperity.

The Marshall Plan required a reduction of interstate barriers, a dropping of many regulations, and encouraged an increase in productivity and the adoption of modern business procedures.

It is doubtful that the United States could provide the kind of support it offered all those years ago. The EU has developed a large stimulus package totalling 1.8 trillion euros which is designed to help rebuild a post-COVID 19 Europe. Unfortunately as the UK is no longer part of the EU we are unable to access this funding. 

I hope the UK government has learned lesson from the COVID-19 experience and now understands the critical importance of a well-funded, well-organised and properly-resourced National Health Service. Spare capacity is not waste: it is an insurance policy designed to ensure that we can meet the unknown health risks and challenges that lie ahead. 

The virus has emphasised the massive gulf that exists between the haves and the have nots. This is particularly evident in health, education, social care, housing, welfare and well-being. Our government needs to get serious and come up with ways of combatting these inequalities. Local authorities should be given the resources they need to invest in their communities, as we have seen over recent years we can find 'the money tree' if we decide to make this a priority. Repurposing the budget set aside for HS2 might be a start!

They should now see the need to develop a workforce that is not reliant on the gig economy (think Uber, Deliveroo and Fiverr) or on service industry jobs where one half of the population makes coffee for the other half. We need to restructure and re-engineer our economy to provide modern, highly-skilled well-paid jobs that design products and services that the world will want to buy.

British scientists and technicians' extraordinary achievement in developing a vaccine has emphasised the need to encourage and recruit more people to pursue careers in the physical sciences. As a society, we have to place a greater value on their endeavours and reward them accordingly. 

Three lockdowns have shown us all the vital importance of human social interactions. Meeting, talking, touching, hugging, laughing and crying together is what makes us human. 

Historically we have tended to undervalue the bits of our culture which encourage us to come together. Our entertainment, arts and leisure industries are often seen as expendable. The virus has demolished that notion. In the future, we need to ensure that human interactions and well-being are a central pillar of government policy. 

A massive and complex set of challenges now faces our present and future governments. We all need to see a long term plan with clear goals and the resources and determination to see it achieved. 

If we have a clear picture of what a brighter future looks like, then a few more weeks of lockdown is bearable. Without such a plan, the future will be bleak for all of us.