There is no challenge to the narrative that the Covid-19 emergency has passed
The response to Covid-19 transformed politics, but now we’re sliding back into regular politics. Covid-19 hasn’t gone away, even if the new Omicron variant is less deadly. But the emergency politics of Covid-19 is going away.
This is because the narrative that Covid-19 is extraordinarily dangerous and requires an emergency response from all of society is being replaced by a narrative that the extraordinary danger has passed, even if Covid-19 itself hasn’t passed. No leading political figures, both politicians and press, are challenging this shift or presenting an alternative to it.
It’s worth taking a look at how this has happened over the last few months.
The end of Plan B restrictions
A few weeks ago, Boris Johnson announced the end to all Plan B Covid-19 restrictions as part of his attempt to save his premiership. Not that many new restrictions were brought in during the pre-Christmas Omicron surge. Here in England, things were considerably more relaxed than in Scotland and Wales. The reason why we didn’t have many new restrictions imposed on us (even after the end of the Christmas period) is that Johnson couldn’t get his cabinet, his MPs, or his party to support them.
To get the restrictions that were passed through parliament, Johnson relied on Labour. Being a Prime Minister with a sizable majority and needing the opposition to pass key votes is humiliating for any Prime Minister and maybe one embarrassment that Teflon Boris is unable to shrug off. Johnson looks weak, vulnerable and likely to fall at any moment.
By supporting Johnson’s restrictions before Christmas, Labour was propping up a Prime Minister they could let die the death of a thousand cuts. I can see why Keir Starmer doesn’t want restrictions, which he views as vital to saving lives, to fail. Although, turning his support for the ailing Prime Minister into a sermon on how Labour is a patriotic party seemed a little heavy-handed.
Johnson clings to power
Allowing Johnson to cling to power to get Covid-19 restrictions passed and claiming this is all for the good of the country is just another example of how Starmer is out of touch with most voters. Yes, lots of voters (especially those Labour needs to win over) consider themselves patriotic, but a public address that resembles a Command and Conquer briefing isn’t what they had in mind.
Starmer’s enthusiasm for lockdowns is another way he is out of step with the country. He is attempting to look like a decisive leader who cares about the health of the people, in contrast to Johnson who dithers and then reluctantly decides to act when the hospitalisation numbers go from alarming to critical.
Everyone dislikes lockdowns and the public distrusts a leader who is very enthusiastic for them, even if it’s for the right reasons. The fact that Johnson had to be dragged by overwhelming evidence into lockdowns is in line with most people's attitudes, i.e. I’ll do it if I must.
Arguing with people in their head
A lot of the public discourse around lockdowns does appear to be people arguing with opponents who only exist in their heads. People reluctant to enter another lockdown are arguing with the mythical very pro-lockdown person; as if there are many people excited to stay home all the time and not see their friends or family.
Meanwhile, those concerned about the rising number of cases are arguing against the vanishingly few people who think Covid-19 should be allowed to let rip, the healthcare system, the disabled and the elderly be damned.
Almost everyone sits somewhere in between these extremes, willing to lock down to prevent a huge spike in Covid-19 fatalities but finding the mental health or financial effects of lockdown hard to bear. They don’t want people to die, but don’t want to be indefinitely entombed in their homes either.
Everyday politics
The political situation is changing as the disease becomes a part of everyday life, not something strange and alarming that requires special emergency measures. Covid-19 is still scary but, like a looming climate disaster or a war with one of the world’s authoritarian nuclear armed regimes, it’s a terror that is now a part of normal politics.
People are being forced by their employers to work, even if they’re sick with Covid-19. That’s normal for the flu and other infectious diseases. People are working from home if they’re sick and have a job in the knowledge economy, which is also normal. A disease is killing lots of old people and putting massive pressure on the NHS in the winter, but this is largely being shrugged off by the Conservative government as something that happens and not something that needs a political solution. All very normal.
At this point you’re probably screaming into your pillow about how we have ended up with the worst parts of Terry Giliam’s Brazil and Terry Giliam’s 12 Monkeys. Shifting the burden of preventing the spread of a disease that kills thousands of people a year onto low paid, poor and insecure workers is not something that Covid-19 invented. Neither is shrugging and hoping that the problem goes away every time the NHS lets out a desperate scream of agony in the run up to Christmas. Catching Covid-19 might be worse than catching the flu, but in many ways our political system is treating Covid-19 very much like the flu.
Becoming endemic
The pandemic produced an emergency response. Two years of restrictions, three lockdowns and two Christmas panics later we’ve managed to jab almost everyone and found out that Covid-19 is not like measles, where one jab gives you all the protection you need. Covid-19 is more like the flu where jabs are helpful, as is good hygiene and wearing masks on public transport if you think you have it, but not something that’s going away anytime soon.
Covid-19 is becoming endemic and is thus colliding with normal politics. The public and politicians will no longer accept emergency response measures. We need to shift to a long-term response. Endemic doesn’t mean Covid-19 is going away and saying it’s becoming like the flu is saying that it will kill lots of people each year and put huge pressure on our health system, but people will largely ignore this.
We will feel the impact of Covid for years to come - there will still be deaths, illness and other losses - but fewer and fewer political ramifications. Unless one political party or politician can find a way to tell a story that weaves Covid-19 in with other political debates to present a vision of the past and future that motivates voters at an election, we will carry on much as we are.
Conversations about death
On Twitter some are saying things along the lines of: “We need to have a conversation about how much death (mainly old and disabled people) is acceptable to get back to normal.” This is to remind us that many thousands of people (mainly old and disabled people) will die if we exit the emergency politics phase of Covid-19 and allow it to become a part of regular politics.
Although shocking, these statements are not having a political impact because they are not creating an alternative narrative to “the emergency has passed and thus Covid-19 is becoming part of normal politics”. If we don’t want Covid-19 to become like the flu (deadly to many but without political consequences) then we need to tell a story about what society will be like when we seek to minimise Covid-19 deaths.
No alternative to the status quo
I don’t know what this society will be like and I’m not hearing much about it. There are no answers to Covid-19, only questions. There are no suggestions, only angry shouts. This isn’t an alternative to the status quo.
There is no coherent alternative to Covid-19 becoming part of normal politics and normal life. No clear call to what we should be doing differently. This means the era of extraordinary measures will end and it will be back to normality, with Covid-19.
