To lock down, to not lock down, when, for how long, what tier and what level of financial support, masks at school, outside, or only on crowded undergrounds? This was where debate raged during the pandemic. In every home, on What’s App, over Zoom, between colleagues and family, doctors and teachers, within government, and in the media.
For many, being reminded of that time is painful. We were happy to wait for the Government inquiry but the pandemic, and our reaction to it, has exploded back into our consciousness again. This is due to the wisdom of Matt Hancock handing over 100,000 messages between fellow politicians, advisors and civil servants from his time as health secretary to journalist Isabel Oakeshott, to help her ghost-write his book, the Pandemic Diaries. Which she then released to a national newspaper that spent two months poring over each conversation, before the details began to be published this week, framed within a prism of lockdown scepticism.
