An older item from the Graun (I spent the last two days wrapping the house in cling film)
Good news for a nation that loves bickering: coronavirus is the new Brexit
one harsh and jewel-like truth: coronavirus is Brexit now....You remember Brexit, don’t you? A while ago now. Started in 2016 as a joke and then it backfired so hard we had to have Theresa May as prime minister. Brexit is done now – in that we have exited Europe and ruined three consecutive Christmases by arguing about it. But just as we were going to get down to the nitty-gritty of actually going into free-trade freefall, coronavirus happened. And – seamlessly – the point-scoring back-and-forth of domestic Brexit arguments has moved on to that.
any announcement of action on Johnson’s part would be under feverish scrutiny...this does immediately create two defined opposing groups: on one side, mindless tub thumpers of government agenda who would back anything Johnson says because he broadly represents them (in the Brexit analogy, these are the most likely to stand over a mass grave and say, “Coronavirus won, get over it”); on the other, people who would like to hear a bit more from the scientists, please.
[but] we now have terms such as “herd immunity” and “80% infection rate” and “second wave” being thrown around by people who, and I’m speaking from personal experience, have read about three-and-a-half articles about it
Intended to be quirky and morale-raising no doubt, but revealing about new petite bourgeois culture and politics as well . It is oppositional and distancing virtue-signalling, disdainful of both upward and downward groups. It has to find new issues if the old ones fade -- anything will do really, whatever is trending. It bases itself on 'common sense' and 'what everyone knows' with a disdain for experts too: I am surprised the people he knows have read any articles and not just social media posts by novelists on a journey and urban poets.
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