Keir Starmer is to self-isolate after someone in his household showed possible signs of being infected by COVID. The question is, will anyone notice the difference, because ever since he was elected Leader he has been virtually invisible anyway, certainly as far as any kind of principled opposition to the government on the two main issues of the day - Brexit and the Lockdown. In fact, his isolation, today, is fortunate for him, as it means that he has an excuse for the fact that the main opposition to the Tories disastrous Brexit policy, that has now resulted in it having to threaten to become a rogue state, and break international law, will come not from Labour, but from the Tories own benches!!! This is a truly pathetic excuse for a Labour opposition.
When arch Blair-right Alan Johnson was appointed as Labour's coordinator, in 2016, of Labour's EU referendum campaign, he immediately disappeared from sight. There were complaints that Corbyn had failed to campaign for a Remain vote, that were largely untrue, being simply a reflection of the media's desire to give him no airtime, along with their morbid fascination with the soap opera that was taking place in the Tory Party, during the campaign. But, compared to Alan Johnson, Corbyn was as busy as a bee, during the EU referendum. However, Starmer today has even outdone Alan Johnson in his lack of activity, and even comments to oppose the Tory Brexit, as he tries to appease the hard right nationalists on his own benches, as he tries to hold together an alliance of the soft-left, Blair-rights and hard Right against the remnants of Corbynism in the PLP, and the sizeable number of progressive social-democrats in the party rank and file, who were drawn in behind Corbyn in 2015 and 2016. Starmer needs to hold that coalition together, in order to be able to begin to undermine the Left in the grassroots of the party. As soon as he has done that, the Right will ditch him, and bring in someone even more to their liking. After all Starmer made the cardinal sin of remaining in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet.
Corbyn, at least, made an effort to argue for a second referendum, even if we all knew he really didn't believe in it, and still held to the delusion, that some kind of Labour Brexit could be negotiated, whereby the EU would voluntarily give us all the benefits of membership without actually being a member, or having any of the costs and responsibilities of membership. But, Starmer hasn't even done that. He has rolled over and died, accepting Brexit as a fait accompli, and offering workers, and Labour voters, who make up the vast majority of the 48% who voted to stay in the EU, and who, if another vote were held tomorrow, would be in a majority, absolutely no hope for the future. He has again opened the door for the SNP, for Plaid and for the Liberals and Greens to present their own petty-bourgeois agendas as being some form of progressive alternative, and in the case of the nationalist parties, only way out of being dragged out of the EU.
Corbyn at least argued against Theresa may's bad deal, and then against Boris Johnson's even worse deal, but Starmer having opposed May's deal under Corbyn, now simply demands that Boris Johnson gets on with implementing his even worse deal. This is surreal! But, its not just on Brexit that Starmer has completely failed to offer up any kind of opposition to Boris Johnson. On the lockdown, Starmer has simply reinforced all of the idiotic measures that Johnson has introduced that have caused the economy to go into the worst economic slowdown in 300 years, and that are threatening to cause millions of workers to lose their jobs as the unaffordable furlough scheme, inevitably gets wound down. The only thing that Starmer and his Shadow Cabinet have had to say is that perhaps the government could have wrecked the economy sooner by introducing the lockdown earlier, or else making minor sniping criticisms of the way the government has implemented its measures.
Starmer's approach has been totally opportunistic. On the lockdown, it was clear from the beginning on what was known from China and Italy that COVID19 is a virus that attacks virtually exclusively the elderly - over 60 but particularly over 80 - and to a lesser extent those whose immune system is compromised. That is why the vast majority of deaths have been of people in care homes and in hospital. There was absolutely no reason why those locations could not have been locked down and isolated so as to protect these vulnerable people from the virus. But, that wasn't done. Instead, like a conjurer using sleight of hand, everyone was told look over here instead, look at what we are doing to lockdown the whole of society, and don't question the fact that the whole of society actually is at virtually no risk from this virus!
Whilst millions of people who were at no risk from the virus were prevented from engaging in social activity, and about 20% were prevented from going to work, which is what has caused the cratering of the economy, thousands of old and sick people in care homes and hospitals, who should have been isolated and protected were dying. And, of course, the lockdown was counterproductive for them too, because where else was the wealth to come from to finance all the expenditure required to finance the additional spending in care homes and hospitals? Indeed, where else was all of the actual goods and services required by those care homes and hospitals to come from, if people were not actually at work, producing them? With all due respect to the proponents of the Magic Money Tree, you can print as many banknotes as you like, and throw them into the economy in furlough payments, or to finance government spending, but you can't build a hospital or a ventilator out of those paper notes.
And, the same is happening all over again. We have the government and media telling millions of people that they cannot meet up in groups of more than six people, and other such nonsense, and yet, day after day, we see TV reporters interviewing older people, the actual people at risk from the virus, who are blithely out shopping, and engaged in other such activities! This is not rocket science. The only people at serious risk from COVID are older people, and those with compromised immune systems. The government should simply say that, and tell such people to isolate. The government should enable them to do so. Everyone else can and should simply get on with life as normal. In that was herd immunity will be developed, the virus will be unable to spread, and will die out.
Even self-isolating for the elderly does not require you to become a hermit. I get my shopping delivered online, but, everyday, I go for my normal half hour run, I have my sit-up bench in the garden, I can do my Kung Fu sets on the lawn, and I can practice with my swords, and so on; my wife and I walk the dog several times a day, simply ensuring that we keep a reasonable distance away from anyone else. This is just common sense for anyone who is in a high risk category. Had the government simply advised such action, rather than implementing the idiotic and counter-productive lockdown, we would have been passed the problem with this virus by now, and of other governments had done the same, it would be in decline across the globe, without having caused the economic damage that has resulted from similar lockdowns.
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