Caerphilly County lockdown: We're not all in this together

 This article was originally published on the website of Socialist Alternative on the 10th September this year.

 

 

New lockdown measures started in Caerphilly County at 6pm on 9 September. The reasons for it, and the nature of the new lockdown measures reveal quite starkly the priorities of the Senedd (Welsh Government).

The background to these new measures is a rise in cases with 133 confirmed cases in the last week alone, equivalent to 55.4 cases per 100,000 people (one of the highest in Wales). Wales currently has the highest density of confirmed cases of any nation in the UK (6,000 per million compared to England at 5,272 and Scotland at 4,041).

Vaughan Gething, the Labour health minister for Wales, has attributed this to people (particularly young people) meeting indoors and not following social distancing guidelines, and to overseas summer holidays. He ignores the fact that pubs are open, public transport is crowded and schools have been open, often in a far-from safe manner, with whole-class bubbles of 30 or more. At the time of writing several schools throughout Wales have already been forced to close due to recent outbreaks, including several schools within Caerphilly County itself. Non-essential businesses have reopened. With the furlough scheme coming to an end, many small businesses face a bleak choice of bankruptcy or unsafe working. Recent pictures on social media have shown social distancing not being enforced, perhaps partly because businesses are desperate to get more customers in to attempt to recover from lost earnings of previous months.

Meeting indoors with a lack of social distancing can contribute to outbreaks. But the messages from both the UK government at Westminster and from Cardiff Bay have been very confusing at best, which has contributed to this. Travel abroad may increase the risk. But overseas travel at the moment falls mainly into two general categories – those who travel to visit family members they have not been able to visit for some time due to lockdown measures, and those who have pre-booked holidays who have no option to cancel with a full refund.

The new lockdown measures in Caerphilly Country include facemasks being mandatory for everyone over eleven inside shops (this had not previously been mandatory in Wales) and all gatherings in the home being forbidden. You are also not allowed to leave the county without good reason, such as to attend work or to care for others, but as Caerphilly has transformed increasingly into a commuter town for Cardiff this is largely an ineffective measure and is more for show. Indeed, the very fact that areas of Caerphilly County have become commuter towns is likely a large part of the reason for a spike in cases as many people will be crammed together on buses and trains during rush hour.

Questioned on why pubs would remain open, the health minister stated with certainty that the virus is not being transmitted in pubs but only in gatherings within the home. You now have the farcical situation that you cannot visit a family member (unless you care for them) or simply cycle for exercise from Caerphilly to Cardiff (12 miles) but you can go from Ystryd Mynach to Caerphilly town to go to the pub (also 12 miles). You can’t go to a friend’s house, but depending on your age, you can sit next to them in class or go to the pub with them. The only measures brought in are designed to have zero impact on any economic activity.

The coronavirus pandemic has made 2020 a difficult year for everyone, having to find new ways of communicating, working and socialising. Lockdown measures have been necessary to attempt to stem the spread of the virus. But these new measures are a lockdown for people, not for the economy. The social isolation, which has affected mental health and led to a crisis in domestic violence, will continue. The most vulnerable will be hit hardest through a lack of planning for those who need any type of support with day-to-day activities.

We cannot return to normal and risk overwhelming our already overworked health workers, plus a big rise in the death toll. But neither can we stay in a perpetual state of lockdown which is taking its toll of the wellbeing of everyone. We need a strategy which puts ordinary working-class people and their needs at the heart of solving this crisis.

This will cost money, but they money does exist in society. Jeff Bezos, who runs Amazon, is set to become the worlds first trillionaire, profiting greatly from the pandemic. But Amazon famously uses various loopholes to avoid paying the correct rate of tax. Estimates suggest the shortfall is in the £100’s of millions. The cost of replacing trident nuclear weapons is estimated to be £205 billion! But capitalism is based on the pursuit of profit and not the needs of working-class people like us, and therefore cannot deal with a crisis of this magnitude.

The labour movement must develop a programme is developed which will genuinely find a route out of the current pandemic. This must include democratic workers control over what measures are taken, including at a local level. Is it safe for schools to open, what measures need to be put in place and what resources are needed for this to happen? If it is not possible to open safely then funds must be made available to ensure parents have all the necessary learning tools available at home, if wanted. No one must suffer any loss of income through time taken off work. These decisions should be made by democratically elected representatives of teachers, parents and the community. Is it safe for non-essential businesses to open? If not, there must be funds to ensure full pay to any workers affected by a closure of their workplace, including those who are self employed. We need a huge increase in funding for services for victims of domestic violence, and a dramatic expansion of social care services.

We must fight for the necessary measures to tackle to pandemic. But doing so also presents an opportunity to start a discussion about the type of society we need – one not based on the needs of the economy but based on the needs of ordinary people. The Covid-19 pandemic affects us all, but we are not all in this together. Working class people have lost jobs; become teachers to their children, whilst working or taking huge cuts in pay; been forced to continue in unsafe working environments. Meanwhile the billionaires have increased their wealth even further by taking advantage of the pandemic. We need to fight back against the Covid-19 virus and the virus of capitalism, which can only serve to worsen the pandemic.

Back, but not like before

I guess the two things go hand in hand. I originally started the blog as I returned to higher education, not because of this but the two projects seemed to go together perfectly.

I am no back and coincidentally have also returned to higher education.

The two things are certainly coincidental, there is of course an overlap in the thought process. A blog of the nature this has been, based primarily on politics in some form or another has a particular overlap if someone (myself) has been studying social science of some variety at the same time. I think though the coicidence is more about my mindset and the willingness to write.

This blog has laid dormant for some time now. My last blog post was over 5 years ago, and that was a one off. Prior to that it had been approaching a decade since regular blogging. Incidentally I no longer think I agree with the content of my last post. However I have chosen to leave it as it certainly was what I thought at the time. Perhaps in the future I will write a reply on the same subject outlining what I now think.

So going forward what will this blog be, at times the blog was good. There are some widely read and engaging articles for the correct reasons, there were also some widely read for the wrong reasons. The blog despite the time and effort I had put into suffered for several reasons which I will attempt to address going forward.

Firstly there was a lack of seriousness, not that a blog, without advertisement, and therefore an unpaid endeavor produced as a hobby rather than any other reason should be taken seriously. What I mean by this is that the content was not taken seriously, or rather the quality of the content was not. It was a serious case of quantity over quality. I felt that the way to be a successful blogger was to pump out content. I felt the need to create a post daily. I have no idea why, some of the bloggers I followed did, but even some of the most regular were only posting 2-3 times a week. This meant the quality suffered and also keeping up the regularity became a chore rather than enjoyable. 

That was not the only problem, the blog also suffered from the arrogance and bravado I held in youth, there was present in many a post and was further exacerbated but the drive to churn out articles. 

I was also obsessed with getting hits, I spent more time promoting the posts than actually writing them. Don't get me wrong. I of course want people to read it  no one puts their writings online if they have no interest in being read widely. This time around whilst I still want the hits. I want it to be more organic than before. Initially I have no plans to link blog posts anywhere on social media  instead will focus on writing and publishing and for the blog to regain an Identity at first.

So what is the blogs new identity. In short, at this stage I do not fully know. Previously, despite the flaws, significant as they were the blog had a very clear identity of politics and sociology. It certainly will contain this, but I also feel there will be other subjects covered which have not been previously. I have several ideas for topics to blog about. I won't list them now as it would feel like a commitment to write which I do not want to make.

That brings me on to the other big change which I think would reverse the trend. That being quality over quantity. I plan have no plans to set myself any kind of limit of minimum blog posts and instead simply having a mindset that I will  post regularly (whatever regularly becomes to mean. In fact initially and perhaps for some time. I will limit myself to publishing one article per week. I would only deviate from this for two reasons, either by creating a backlog of unpublished articles or if something I had written was particularly useful at the time of writing. As time goes on this pattern could change. The crucial thing is there will be no unrealistic timetable for publication. This will be done deliberately so that there is so pre-determined regularity without the need to force articles.

Although, as I have stated the articles will have a more serious character, it does not mean that every article will be some masterpiece or a fully worked out essay, there will be some essay or at least essay style posts, but by serious, I simply mean that the post will be more thought out, rather than rushed out.

The next few articles which will be published over the coming weeks have already been written at varying times over the last year, but as I have not been blogging never made it here before.

To future blogging.