E P Thompson’s Writing by Candlelight (1980) revisited. Times letter writers on the COVID Inquiry (Dec 11th) What was the ‘overall cost benefit’?
The late socialist historian E P Thompson (1924-1993) was an enthusiast for letter writing. He wrote many himself although most unfortunately are locked away in the Bodleian for the time being.
He researched the history of aspects of letter writing, along with his researcher E E Dodds, and one result was his essay The Crime of Anonymity which has considerable relevance in 2023 although it was about the first decades of the nineteenth century. It looks at the writing of anonymous letters as threats- often to the rich and powerful-and official efforts to track down and punish the writers. The parallel with social media is considerable.
Thompson also wrote letters to the papers and was entertained particularly by the reactionary nature of some letter writers to The Times.
He would certainly have found at least one of those in The Times (11th December) to be of interest. The writer opined that while the COVID Inquiry had focused on the shortcomings of politicians the real issue was whether Lockdowns were appropriate or not. They felt a cost benefit analysis is required. Of course Lockdowns saved lives but at what cost to the economy and profit? There was also certainly an impact on the social fabric of society from the NHS to education but this had already been significantly damaged by ten years of austerity politics in 2020(the letter writer doesn’t mention this)
Times letter writers have now had their say on the COVID Inquiery. They are at root, in the main though not exclusively, reactionary of course. E P Thompson I sense would have been interested…
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