My beautiful two-year old granddaughter ran towards me the other day with a huge smile and her arms raised above her head…panic began to rise in my chest. What should I do? My options included:
- Taking a step back and reading the Coronavirus Act to her,
- Running away,
- Effecting some kind of blocking movement learned in my days of practicing karate,
- Pick her up and hug her.
Read on to find out what I did.
I know it is old news now and I am only just getting in under the radar with this one since the right to hug our grandchildren will officially be restored to us at the weekend (with caution). It has taken me a while to comment on this one as it is really an indicator of how we now live Through the Looking Glass in some Carrollian nightmare where everything is back to front, nothing is quite as it seems and, from Carroll’s other great book Alice in Wonderland, the truth can be whatever the latest government minister who stands up to speak says it is. I have many friends who are content to be ‘on message’ with the social distancing, the numbers limits and socialising outdoors until restrictions are eased. But the issue of hugging has moved many of these over the line.
And note that I said above that it is the ‘right’ to hug our grandchildren that will be restored, not the ‘freedom’ to do this. Our freedom to hug anyone was taken away many months ago in tandem with the freedoms of movement, association and speech. They can never be our freedoms again as, while freedom itself may be granted, its individual constituents cannot. From this year forward we will only have the freedom to do whatever our government permits us to do. The move from democracy to dictatorship did not take long, did it? Emancipation from the bulk of the ridiculous and unnecessary and not evidence-based restrictions of the Coronavirus Act comes with some salient reminders. Our government can remove our constitutive freedoms and they have done so. The fact that they threaten to and probably will try to restrict us again before long should serve as a constant reminder of how precious freedom is (or was). Following the pandemic, we will have the rights of free movement, association and speech but, being rights, they can very easily be rescinded. As I write, the SAGE group are examining the entrails to see what is coming next on the excuse that we have an Indian variant of the coronavirus. It would not surprise me if the brakes were applied to the movement out of lockdown. We will see.
While some flawed logic could be applied to lockdowns, social distancing and face masks, it is beyond ludicrous that some civil servant somewhere had to write speeches for Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock in which they actually had to spell out that we were banned from hugging our loved ones. They then compounded the folly by writing speeches which told us it was OK to go back to the previously forbidden practice of hugging. I am no astronomer but even with my meagre knowledge of the universe I just cannot imagine a planet where these people live and, in all sincerity, believe it is acceptable to try to interfere with people’s lives to this extent. I also cannot imagine a planet where they live and on which they really thought anyone was paying the slightest attention. As to which of the above choices I made? I am a registered health professional whose job depends on that registration. I am not saying.
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