Covid-19 and the madness of crowds

Thanks Lewian. The Scottish question of independence and membership of the EU, and to a far lesser extent the same debate in Wales where I live, is a strange one.

My argument as to the remoteness of central government holds here. For someone living in the Scottish Highlands, Westminster government might as well be on another planet. Ironically, both Scottish devolved government in Edinburgh and Welsh in Cardiff Bay are also seen as being remote and disconnected. Ask anyone who cares about these matters in Gwynedd, North Wales what they think about the administration in Cardiff, they will, by an overwhelming majority, speak ill of them. What a lot of people do not realise is that the government model in the devolved countries of the UK is exactly the same as its “parent” in Westminster - very centralised with power and prestige exclusively in the national capitals.

I was, for a little while, a member of Plaid Cymru, the Welsh nationalist party, despite not being remotely Welsh. I was attracted by the idea of government at its lowest possible level. However, Plaid, as with the SNP in Scotland, are committed to not just independence, but also the independent country rejoining the EU. And that is where I get off the bus. I simply cannot understand why, intellectually, you are unhappy with being ruled by an unaccountable elite in London, but are more than content with being ruled by one in Brussels. It makes no sense whatsoever.

Actually, though, there is a far simpler reason why a majority of people in the Welsh speaking areas of Wales (a minority of the country itself) vote for the nationalists. It is because they hate the bloody English, and I have no doubt it is repeated in many parts of Scotland, and I, for one, got extremely tired of the petty nationalism and small mindedness demonstrated.

I find your points about Germany interesting, if nothing else because the lower mortality rates and better testing there have been held up by people in the UK as a glowing example of how regional government is better at coping with such emergencies. Go figure, eh?

Your final sentence also beautifully exemplifies the problem we have here. Should some general principles override localised preferences or, in this case, prejudices? I suspect that we will never have a general consensus on this, and, believe me, it is something that I do struggle with both emotionally and intellectually.

As an example of what I was trying to get at, the wife and I watched a good film last night, called Clemency, a powerful study of a black female prison warden in America whose job it is to prepare and oversee the execution of prisoners on Death Row. As we all know, the majority of such unfortunates there are black and dirt poor. I don’t want this to become a debate about capital punishment (I am implacably opposed and campaigned for some years as a member of Amnesty International), but the point here is that for all of the laws passed as general principles to get rid of morally indefensible rules such as the Jim Crow laws and slavery before it, they don’t seem to have made that much difference in terms of the quality of the lives of the people they were designed to help. You can pass all the national laws you like, but if they make no difference on the ground, well if I were a victim of economic and social deprivation, I would quite reasonably ask what the point of said laws was. My alternative is a more localised and nuanced approach which would persuade and educate, as opposed to bullying and imposing, but I do genuinely appreciate the difficulties this brings, and the moral and political choice you highlight.

To close, a very interesting discussion, which does bring out the best in us, at least.

I understand precisely what you are saying. This is an argument which was started around about the time that a very hairy looking chap decided that humanity would be better off by climbing down from its nice trees and become hunter-gatherers, and became the leader of a growing bunch of fellow hairy-looking chaps .

I will, though, use your example to try and be consistent in my arguments. I probably shouldn’t have to do this, but I will firstly point out to all and sundry that I actively loathe racism and societal harm to the most vulnerable.

The simple answer to your question (and it is not a simplistic debate, as I will explain) is that, yes, there were many people in your neck of the woods who would have considered desegregation of lunch counters to represent a tyranny on the part of US government in Washington. From that moment on, it became virtually impossible for a Democrat Presidential candidate to win a majority across a swathe of Southern States, and the roots of Trumpalot and his brand of populism can be traced back to this directly (unintended consequences, and all that).

My own view is that no matter how wrong we might consider local laws to be sometimes, governance of people should, wherever possible, be devolved to the lowest possible local level so that yes, should the good folk of Little Rock, Arkansas, for example, want segregation as opposed to the good folk of Memphis, Tennessee, who vote against, then that should be their right. I might not agree with said good folk, but that is the absolute consequence of my belief in a type of local democracy.

My view is that what is considered good for the people of, say, Cumbria in England by the government of London is very rarely the same as what the good citizens of Cumbria consider to be good for them. The same applies for trying to govern deepest Arkansas from Washington. My opinion is that we are far too centralised in our approach to governing, and that history tells us what happens to overbearing, over-centralised, and over-mighty bureaucracies - they fall, and said fall is usually accompanied by periods of massive human disruption such as war, pestilence, and plague.

Now then, the over-simplistic bit. I fully understand that a lot of people reading this post would want to jump in and say....”Hey Steve. You would be prepared to allow downtrodden black people to be forced to eat separately, to be segregated on buses, to go back to Jim Crow? Seriously, man?” To which my answer would be no, I don’t want that for the citizens of Little Rock, nor indeed anywhere. However, let us consider seriously the unintended consequences of national dictats. You will be aware, John, that there are vast swathes of the Southern part of your country where, even now, there are areas where only blacks live and congregate (usually quite poor), where only blacks eat, where only blacks get together to worship, and etc. In other words, society itself continues what are, in effect, Jim Crow without that even being part of the statute book. I know that the situation is nowhere near as bad as it was, but it does exist, as does the grinding poverty experienced by many people over there, a lot of which is caused by economic apartheid, something gleefully practised by governments and corporations worldwide and of all colours, hues, and ethnicity.

In other words, very powerful people tend to be very good at remaining very powerful people, form elites of very powerful people, do very well at sticking together, and do equally well at imposing their worldview on extremely reticent populace’s. It is such people and institutions that I tend to rail against. It explains, by the way, when I, a naturally liberal person (and I mean liberal in its classic sense, rather than the modern metropolitan type) voted for Brexit. It was not, as others implied here, a “immigration” thing. I couldn’t give a f**k where someone comes from. Indeed, my family is a mix of Maltese, English, and Ashkenazi Jew. I hold a Maltese citizenship. My reasons for voting to come out were an overbearing, anti democratic, and over centralised elite in the form of the European Commission imposing their values, rules, and norms on me.

To conclude, if the price of local democracy is local persons passing laws which I might find unpalatable, then so be it. The problems of racism have not gone away simply because Washington passed laws outlawing aspects of it. Indeed, many of the problems faced by repressed minorities have gotten a damned sight worse since the repeal of Jim Crow.

And very lastly, some might point out, understandably, that it is the height of hypocrisy for me, a civil servant, expounding such views and remaining a civil servant. They would be right. It is shockingly hypocritical, but, hey, it puts bread on the table, and it does not stop me wanting a better way of being governed, nor does it mean that I want to do away completely with national governments. I simply believe that it is always better if we seek to restrict as much as we can their power, and also empower local people to take as much control over their lives as is practicable.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

But, we get what we deserve.