23rd March 2020-21st March 2022. Some still untold histories of the present
Its two years today, Monday 23rd March 2020, that Boris Johnson announced the first national lockdown.
It is far too soon to write the history of the last two years of lockdowns, illness and death, and job losses.
That doesn’t mean however that some of the constituent parts of that history cant be gathered.
There are a lot and some have been covered by the media, but not all.
The point most often made was that Johnson locked down too late two years ago and contributed to the UK having amongst the highest COVID death rates in the world in 2020.
A people’s inquiry on this and other matters has already looked at matters but an official one won’t happen now until 2023. It will probably be ponderous, go on a long time and lead to not much (think Iraq War).
There are lots of other matters that should go to making the pre-history of the last 24 months.
One key area because it will be one of the hardest to record is the world and the people that Boris Johnson doesn’t know exist. These are often ethnic minorities, but not always. They are always from the poorest less well-off parts of society.
There are the issues of poor housing conditions that led to increased COVID infections and deaths in some areas. In the first lockdown it was London Boroughs, subsequently it has moved elsewhere, as it were.
Numbers were left to work in unsafe conditions. Over 50 London bus drivers have died of COVID. Meanwhile teachers and the NEU in particular had to fight, and were vilified for doing so, for safety at work.
We can’t and never will forget the NHS and the range of those who work so hard to keep it going. Their reward? Less than inflation pay ‘rises’ in effect pay cuts.
It goes much wider than this. While there were large numbers thrown out of work-think pubs, theatre, music etc there were also many who continued to work throughout, keeping things going. That includes the telecoms managers and professionals who I represent as a trade union officer.
Finally we must not forget those who have done very well out of the last two years. The very highly paid consultants who didnt deliver track and trace. The friends of Tory Ministers who got large contracts to do things only for it to be eventually discovered that the NHS and local authorities do it better and much more cheaply.
There is a lot of history to be discovered and recorded here. It is our present but it will be future generations past and it needs to be documented and told.
Dr Keith Flett convenes the socialist history seminar at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London.
Leave a Reply