Being reckless with the lives of others isn’t really in the spirit of Christmas, is it?
Let me break this down for anyone who feels like they are going mad-as someone who does political analysis for a living but who is also, crucially, one of the sappiest soppiest Carol-hollering fairy-light-festooning Christmas Spirit elves you will ever meet:
Really, stay at home.
Really, stay at home.
For ages, cultural conservatives have laid claim to Christmas as if they own it- which is odd, because it’s a celebration that’s meant to be all about tolerance and nobody left out in the cold and open hearts and all that stuff. (With optional Jesus).
This poses a problem.
This poses a problem.
No politician- especially no conservative politician- wants the optics of being the one to actually literally cancel Christmas. They can starve single parents and leave refugees to drown, but cancelling Christmas is apparently a bridge too far.
This is because optics are all the political right, at least the section of it in power, actually knows how to do. They are hollow men with no vision or purpose, terrified of their own mediocrity and achingly aware of their own incompetence in the face of actual crisis.
These are, in short, people who could not actually host a Christmas dinner if their joyless, inept little lives depended on it. They have no concept of what it means to actually devote your time and energy to making other people’s lives a little bit better.
The people making a song and dance about not cancelling Christmas for COVID are the exact people who you always dread coming round for Christmas. They don’t help clear up, they hog the remote, they pick fights, the whole holiday is spent managing their fragile egos.
The British government is prepared to tolerate thousands of extra deaths from COVID-19- gruelling, painful, pointless, avoidable deaths- just so they don’t have to be the ones responsible for ‘cancelling Christmas’.
That strikes me as somewhat counter to the Christmas spirit.
That strikes me as somewhat counter to the Christmas spirit.
I’m a goofball who loves Christmas. Every year at exactly 3pm on Christmas Eve I still insist on opening the windows to ‘let the spirit of Christmas in’ (I am 34 years old).
This year I’m spending it away from home, for the first time. I SO wish it weren’t the right thing to do.
This year I’m spending it away from home, for the first time. I SO wish it weren’t the right thing to do.
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