'Failures of State' by Jonathan Calvert and George Arbuthnott

Despite me not being completely ignorant of how bad the UK government's response to the pandemic was, I still found this book shocking. It is a relentless catalogue of bad decisions, made by a government both callous and incompetent. Working in a hospital through COVID, the book put some things I remembered into a wider context.

I remembered colleagues sharing photos of the PPE worn by healthcare staff in other countries, and comparing it to the flimsy aprons we were given. Public Health England downgraded the threat ranking of Covid-19, which meant that only basic PPE needed to be worn, according to health and safety laws, and this was a way of getting around the shortage of PPE caused by the pandemic stockpile being allowed to run down or expire over the austerity decade.

I remembered the mixed messages given about masks, and learnt that there was a government desire early on in the pandemic to minimise the effectiveness of masks to the public, because there were fears that masks might run out if everyone rushed out to get them. The government was trying to buy as many commercially available masks as possible for the NHS, because of the austerity-ravaged stockpile. This then, obviously, backfired later when masks were made mandatory.

What shocked me the most was how much the politicians rejected scientific advice, or never sought it. The scientific advisors first heard about Eat Out To Help Out on the day it was announced to the public. Same with the nonsensical tier system. The government announced many changes to restrictions without asking for any modelling work to estimate the impact on infections or the NHS.

I remember the 'I back Boris 100% he's doing his best in a bad situation' crowd on social media being roundly mocked at the time, but there was nevertheless a sizeable chunk of the population who were sympathetic towards the government, believing them to be doing their best, making tough decisions while following the best scientific advice available. Unfortunately, that is a poisonous fiction.

The UK Covid-19 Inquiry will be the Johnson administration's Chilcott, and hopefully its outcome will have actual consequences for those whose terrible decisions led to tens of thousands of avoidable deaths.

I do recommend this book a lot. I learnt a lot from it, and it has made me even more disillusioned with our political system. 

In a just country, Matt Hancock would at least be a disgraced ex-politician, not a pseudo-celebrity joining a reality TV show while trying to flog a book. In a just country, Rishi Sunak would never have become Prime Minister, and even the thought of Boris Johnson returning as PM would have been anathema to all of the political class. Alas, that is not the country we live in.

UK Doomsday Preppers

 I watched a documentary on UK Doomsday Preppers this morning, and I was struck by how much the prepper mindset is rooted in, and fuelled by, social isolation and loneliness. The preppers' apocalyptic fantasies either serve as an affirmation of the individual's present isolation, or as an imagined negation of it. 

There are preppers whose fantasies are all about individual survival: a solitary badass macho man, sometimes accompanied by his immediate nuclear family, hiding away from the imagined evils of a society crumbling around them, surviving and thriving due to the Great Man's ingenuity and resourcefulness. Strength in isolation.

One has hidden a large cache in a hut in the Welsh countryside; he gets his family to do drills regularly, where they quickly pack their things, leave their Stockport home, and drive to the Welsh hideaway to practice living simply, away from the society whose imminent collapse they imagine. Really, it's just an elaborate excuse for a camping holiday.

Another has his supplies hidden on a small uninhabited island in the middle of a river, which he can navigate to with a kayak. He imagines he could survive alone on the island for several months, living off either his supplies or the island's flora and fauna. He does not mention the negative psychological consequences of a lack of human interaction, probably because they are such a constant in his present life that he sees them as normal.

On the other extreme, there are the preppers who imagine that the apocalypse would grant them opportunity for socialisation and community that they have been denied under present society. 

One prepper has stocked up on equipment for 'about a dozen like-minded people', who he imagines he will meet in the ruins. Crucially, they are not the friends and family he knows today, but imaginary future friends whom society is currently preventing him from meeting. He also imagines that 'because of [his] resources and knowledge, [he] would probably have leadership thrust upon [him].'

Another, who explains that she lives in an area that is majority Muslim, has several copies of the Qur'an in her doomsday supplies, which she might need to read during the apocalypse in order to fit in with her wider community. 

There's a latent curiosity apparent in this fantasy; she could, of course, read the Qur'an right now, get to know her neighbours, become active in the community, all of her own free will. Literally no one is stopping her but herself. But instead of doing that, she imagines apocalypses which force her to do all those things.

She also has a stockpile of condoms and lube, because sex is one of the few easily accessible comforts during an apocalypse, and you never know you will meet as society collapses, so it's best to be prepared.

Some people would rather spend £1000s on army surplus equipment and non-perishable food, than get therapy or learn social skills. One could also make a wider and deeper point about atomization, the breakdown of community, and the need for greater mental health services and therapy options in our hyper-individualistic capitalist society, but that's not something I can really be bothered going into in this particular Facebook post.

'Pennyblade' by J.L. Worrad

Grimdark is a genre I tend to bounce off, so I was a bit apprehensive going into this, and some quite unpleasant scenes early on were off-putting (there is an attempted sexual assault in the first chapter, and a bit later on some really horrific ableism). However, I am very glad I persevered, because once it really got going I was hooked. The fictional world is well drawn and fascinating. The story has good depth and complexity, with a heartfelt romance at its core, nuanced characters, and insightful-but-not-in-your-face commentary on the real world. 

Masks, literal and metaphorical, play an important role in the story: characters are often hiding their true selves behind superficial facades. And so is the book. As the protagonist's vulgarity and unpleasantness hides her inner sensitivity and vulnerability until her mask slips, so too does the book's gruesomeness obscure the work's emotional core and social commentary, until Worrad chooses to let the mask slip.

Discussing one of his novels, China Mieville said 'Part of the appeal of the fantastic is taking ridiculous ideas very seriously and pretending they’re not absurd.' That quote came back to me while reading Pennyblade. Worrad's fantasy race - the Commrach, elf-like humanoids related to cats - go into heat every year and become sex mad. Worrad has clearly spent a lot of time thinking how this aspect of their biology would affect the culture of an intelligent species as it developed civilisation. He's taken this ridiculous idea very seriously, and created a convincing culture for the Commrach, who are understandably more relaxed about sex compared to humans, and, being cat-like, are very up themselves.

There is a lot of sex in the book, which I would normally find quite tiresome, but I was impressed by the way Worrad described it. At no point did I feel like I was supposed to be getting aroused by what was being described; there was none of the cringe-inducing eroticism I normally expect from sex scenes. Instead, the sex is described with language that is a mixture of bluntly matter-of-fact and oddly poetic, which is at times hilarious, grim-in-a-funny-way. Tellingly, it is only the casual, meaningless sex scenes that are described; hidden 'off camera', but made reference to, are the private, meaningful, intimate acts between two lovers.

After finishing the book I'm better able to reflect on the unpleasant scenes I found off-putting near the beginning. I do think that having an attempted sexual assault in the first chapter was unnecessary and starts the book off on the wrong foot. However, the horrendous ableism serves a greater purpose within the story.

The Commrach civilisation in the book has a belief system like real-world eugenics. They are working towards 'the final countenance', the perfect form, and members of the society see themselves as vessels for the Blood to be passed on to the next generation through selective breeding.

I came to this book having recently read [book:Control: The Dark History and Troubling Present of Eugenics|59693838], so the real world links were very fresh in my mind: eugenicist thoughts and beliefs have scarred our culture and society, and continue to influence those in power. In Britain during the pandemic, eugenicist ideas were being openly discussed and flirted with by people at the top of government. It is probably no coincidence that the virus was largely allowed to run rampant through care homes, and COVID patients with learning disability were often given blanket Do Not Resuscitate notices. 

Worrad does not shy away from showing how unpleasant the eugenicist mindset is, and how damaging it is. These views, espoused early in the novel by the Commrach protagonist, highlight how unpleasant Commrach society is, and forms part of the protagonist's character arc throughout the novel. It also highlights a very real bigotry in our world - a bigotry that is more common than we'd like to believe, and one that is often forgotten. Worrad's fictional eugenicists are used to great effect in one particular scene (when the book's gruesome mask slips) to highlight the implicit eugenics of free market capitalism.

Overall I was extremely impressed by this book, and if you get the audiobook, the narrator does a frankly incredible job. I look forward to Worrad's next one.