COVID-19’s balancing act: equalities, etc.

I suspect the newness of the virus and the lack or absence of clarity about most aspects to do with transmission, infection and healing creates fertile ground for the need to always get the next sound bite or ‘fact’ out.

It was not that long ago that the British Medical Association crawled out from under whatever rock it’s been hiding under for months to undermine official medical advice – not government – that spacing the vaccines over 12 weeks is safe. But the British Medical Association said that was “difficult to justify” and should be changed to six weeks.

The medics of course hit back and backed the government’s decision to delay the second dose for up to three months, after the “difficult to justify” pronouncement from the BMA.

In a piece in the Guardian, president of the Royal College of Pathologists, said the college supports the government plan to delay second doses. This article quotes Professor David Salisbury, the former director of immunisation at the Department of Health, who said the BMA’s intervention risked “undermining the confidence that doctors and the public can have in the recommendations that have been made after very careful consideration”.

Divergent views such as these are, and there’s a very good word in Arabic that captures this, ‘ijtihad’. In its literal meaning, the word refers to effort, physical or mental, expended in a particular activity. It has its origin in the rights of jurists under early Islam to exercise original thinking. In a nutshell, in a COVID19 context, it means we all try our best to explain and rationalise given the information available to us.

Where this becomes really interesting, was captured in a debate on 22 January at Brighton and Hove City Council on a health and well-being notice of motion. A motion that showed aspiration and perhaps good intentions but lacked the leadership to take tough decisions on how adult social care can be funded in Brighton and Hove. I laid out the how in a column late last year on Conservative Home.

Perhaps to maintain public sympathy to their cause, it appeared a few days ago that the self-selecting scientists come wanna be politicians on Independent Sage pulled a 180 degree turn on their core plank – more and tougher lockdowns. It was not that long ago that this group issued a statement pointing to the clear and present danger posed by COVID19 calling for an immediate national lockdown. This was seized on by the British press, especially the Independent Newspaper, who then argued that England should go into full national lockdown immediately, citing ‘rising coronavirus cases and a new highly contagious variant of the virus’.

The turnaround came a mere 3 weeks later, when the Independent published research highlighting how the pandemic and the response had taken a “devastating toll” on the mental well-being of young people. Similar noises were coming from Independent Sage and the ‘Left’ who having called for tougher lockdowns, had to admit that the unequal impact of the pandemic on ethnic minority groups  extends  beyond infection and mortality rates with people of BAME background more likely to be worse affected by the lockdown, for example in terms of their mental health, and also by the economic recession to come and projected job and income losses. 

This must surely be an area where issues around equalities, racism and the ‘whiteness’ of our scientific community has to be flagged and addressed. Who plays judge and jury when patters of equality raise their head between competing priorities in public politics, both with a small and a capital ‘P’. Simon Ricketts picks up the matter of the London cycle lane in his most recent blog and the legal view on this, Temporary Covid Measures – Planning, Traffic, Local Government: There May Be Trouble Ahead.

Simon rightly points out that the contentious nature of decisions which balance priorities, as between the use of streets by through traffic and by communities, has been one of the political themes of the pandemic, particularly in London. 

The same must surely be true for balancing lockdowns with the impacts on communities. Decisions loom not only the local elections in May in England, but also on the big events in 2020 coming up, the Olympics in Tokyo, Expo in Dubai, and closer to home in Brighton and Hove, Festival and Pride!

When illiberal liberals are in charge

If you live in Brighton and Hove, or any other city looking at local headlines struggling with hastily installed cycle lanes brought about by the pandemic, you will be wondering just how temporary are the temporary cycle lanes being installed.

Our own experience in Brighton and Hove, judging by a somewhat lengthy Environment, Transport and Sustainability Committee, would suggest that these cycle lanes are not very temporary.

Two engines drive this thought, this idea of the ‘not very temporary’ temporary cycle lane. The first engine is that that the city does not have data on usage of the cycle lane. Not before, not after. For a number of years, the city has not gathered the evidence base it needed to gather in order to drive informed and resident-supported policy initiatives.

The second engine is lined to this latter component, public support. There is none. Or, there is no proof – data – that there is any. With both of those, components in place, what can only be described as illiberal liberals are having a field day.

The idea or concept of the illiberal liberal is not a new one. Back in 2001, Brian Anderson wrote that liberals used to be the staunchest advocates of reasoned, civil debate. No more, he argued back then. Now (2001), he points out, ‘it’s argument by name-calling’.

The tendency to use close-minded and uncivil language, he noted, betrayed what was (and is?) liberal in liberalism.

Citing the American political project, he goes on to say that, without reflection or reason, politics degenerates into tyranny or mob rule. This is especially true where politicians, or anyone for thar matter, dismisses the views of out of hand.

John Locke, liberalism’s father, believed that general good will and regard for all people were very important. One must not show contempt, disrespect, or neglect of others.

Cycle lanes introduced under COVID financial support packages are a good example of this. A councillor recently wrote of the Brighton and Hove cycle lanes that a ‘dogmatic approach [to transport policy] is only serving to turn many people against the positives of having better active travel solutions precisely at the time when the council needs to gain as much support as possible. The illiberal in the liberal appears to be winning the day.

Writing about public debates some 20 years ago, Brian Anderson explores how recent (2001) public discussion, ‘liberals haven’t engaged in much reasoned argument with conservatives or shown much civility toward them’.

In those 20 intervening years, this debate has not gone away. In fact, it gets picked by Paul Krause in 2019 when he writes of the myth that is illiberal liberalism.

Krause hits back at those who believe in the ‘true’ classical liberalism, or authentic liberalism, set against various strands of leftism today, which, some argue, aren’t in any way, shape, or form meaningfully liberal.

The good life, according to the classical liberal fathers like Hobbes and Locke, consists in avoiding harm, writes Krause. This good life, he points out, is freedom from harm, or avoidance of harm.

Thinking in terms of this harm, where does this leave our cycle lanes or the dogmatic decision to keep them when residents have already identified them as harmful?

We cannot pick and choose our fights. We cannot support green spaces and opt to build on gardens. We cannot choose some petitions over others because it is convenient.

This position we find ourselves in today, in Brighton and Hove, is Krause note, akin to wanting the economics of Smith without the moral theory of Smith or the anthropology of Locke without the political and logical implications of Locke’s anthropology.

This is why the illiberal liberals in our midst will eventually be called out. It is inevitable.