Hello,
This week I’ve been watching the Covid inquiry and feeling a mix of rage and, well, guilt.
Let’s start with the rage.
Here are some of the things we’ve “learned”:
Boris Johnson resisted locking down in March 2020 because the people getting sick “will die anyway soon”
He also thought the virus was “nature’s way of dealing with old people”
Matt Hancock told officials that he – rather than the medical profession – “should ultimately decide who should live or die” if the NHS was overwhelmed
I say “learned” because to some extent we already knew. We knew that No 10 had flirted with letting Covid rip in pursuit of herd immunity. We knew that they had knowingly and recklessly discharged people from hospitals into care homes without testing. We knew that no one working in social care could get PPE and that users were having their right to care revoked. We knew that people with learning disabilities were given Do Not Resuscitate orders without their or their families consent.
And we knew that for weeks in January, February and even early March 2020, the government was telling the public not to worry because “only the vulnerable” were at risk of dying.
We knew.
So along with my fury at Johnson and Hancock and Dominic Cummings and the whole sorry, lying, incompetent, cruel lot of them, I am quite angry with the journalists and commentators now pretending to be shocked by the inquiry’s “revelations”.
Because there are only two reasons you could have not known that the government had decided certain people’s deaths were ok - either by refusing to believe disabled people, or by kind of believing them but not caring.
I truly believe that by keeping silent or uncritically repeating government messaging, (sections of) the media was complicit in the unnecessary deaths of disabled people.
Hence the rage.
But also, hence the guilt. Because the truth is, I was complicit in that silence too.
Yes, I tried extremely hard to tell those stories and make some noise. But when those efforts were thwarted, as they often (but not always!) were, I didn’t do enough. I didn’t take risks or scream and shout. I didn’t quit my job (well, not until much later). I toed the line and I wish I hadn’t.
I really wish I hadn’t.
For disabled people, the Covid inquiry is difficult to watch. We always knew our lives were devalued by the Tories, but seeing this confirmed in casual WhatsApp messages is something else entirely. It makes all of us feel sick - and it should make you feel sick too.
But the real pit in my stomach comes from knowing we - and I - let them get away with it. Never again.
Speak soon,
Lucy
I wrote a book!
That’s right! My debut book is NOW.
It’s a memoir about life as a disabled woman, how ableism and sexism interact in complicated and multifaceted ways, and how we often have to fight to be seen as women at all. Find out more here.
I put my heart and soul into this book and I’d love it to reach as many people as possible. Please do grab a copy or share the link with anyone who’d be interested.