Northerner
Admin (Retired)
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
(Opinion piece)
Binge in December, purge in January.
Or at least, that’s the way Britain normally does Christmas: a brief splurge of shopping, partying and stuffing our faces, before waddling into new year skint, hungover and carrying an extra half a stone. Boris Johnson is clearly a stickler for tradition, to judge from early briefings about a superspreader Yule in which up to three households could be allowed to mingle for up to five days and to hell with the consequences for intensive care units. But is a big blowout, paid for by yet more lockdown when the R number inevitably surges, really what we want this year?
January is horrible enough as it is: a season of divorce lawyers, diets and regrets. But to afford a “normal” Christmas with all the trimmings this year, it’s going to be January for months. Next week we’re likely to emerge from the current lockdown into a stricter version of the tiered semi-lockdowns that were in force before it, and stay there or thereabouts until a critical mass of Britons are vaccinated. With luck, that might mean March.
The government reportedly expected to face a “mutiny of mums” if it didn’t unlock for December, but an Opinium poll for this weekend’s Observer found over half of the public would rather have a locked-down Christmas with fewer restrictions, with broad agreement across demographics. All the way through this pandemic, a government whose own instincts tend to the libertarian have consistently assumed the nation to be more gung ho than it actually is, and I suspect may have done so again.
www.theguardian.com
Binge in December, purge in January.
Or at least, that’s the way Britain normally does Christmas: a brief splurge of shopping, partying and stuffing our faces, before waddling into new year skint, hungover and carrying an extra half a stone. Boris Johnson is clearly a stickler for tradition, to judge from early briefings about a superspreader Yule in which up to three households could be allowed to mingle for up to five days and to hell with the consequences for intensive care units. But is a big blowout, paid for by yet more lockdown when the R number inevitably surges, really what we want this year?
January is horrible enough as it is: a season of divorce lawyers, diets and regrets. But to afford a “normal” Christmas with all the trimmings this year, it’s going to be January for months. Next week we’re likely to emerge from the current lockdown into a stricter version of the tiered semi-lockdowns that were in force before it, and stay there or thereabouts until a critical mass of Britons are vaccinated. With luck, that might mean March.
The government reportedly expected to face a “mutiny of mums” if it didn’t unlock for December, but an Opinium poll for this weekend’s Observer found over half of the public would rather have a locked-down Christmas with fewer restrictions, with broad agreement across demographics. All the way through this pandemic, a government whose own instincts tend to the libertarian have consistently assumed the nation to be more gung ho than it actually is, and I suspect may have done so again.
Not everyone wants a normal Christmas if it means a harsher lockdown to come | Gaby Hinsliff
Boris Johnson is obsessing over tradition, but many would prefer to keep festivities small, and try something different this year, says Guardian columnist Gaby Hinsliff
www.theguardian.com
