If it doesn't find a political home, the collectivism of lockdown will be washed away like pavement chalk
A series of TV adverts for a building society captures the unexpected moments of bonding found during housebound lockdown. A chocolate bar commercial shows relatives keeping in touch, neighbours helping each other and streets clapping for carers – before closing on the promise that none of this needs to stop when lockdown ends. An ad for oven chips suggests that, when all this is over, we should keep making time for family.
While children’s rainbow drawings still adorn neighbourhood windows and praise for NHS workers splashes across buildings, all the chalked street pictures and hope-filled slogans have long washed away. As the economy reopens this month, little remains of our shared experience of lockdown, save for the sentimentality of commercial advertising.
We know all too well that lockdown was not experienced equally; in fact, it served to lay bare and painfully exacerbate our existing inequalities. We realise, too, that the rose-tinted view of lockdown as a time to recall the precious things in life – family, health, nature – obscures the fact that many felt pressured to breaking point, not least those juggling work, homeschooling and caring responsibilities, often in cramped conditions and under financial strain.
Still, a commonality was forged just by going through the experience together. That companies will voraciously tap into it, branding our lives to sell their products is hardly new. Naomi Klein’s No Logo meticulously documented that process more than 20 years ago.
Lockdown ads perhaps do unite us in a shared weary irritation at their mawkish opportunism. More striking, though, is that such strong sentiments are finding scant expression elsewhere – least of all in politics.
Months ago there were predictions that, equipped with so many pandemic eureka moments, we would not go “back to normal” after lockdown. Exposed to the realities of who does the essential work in our society, how much we value green spaces and how we could improve the lives of the most vulnerable, there was a certainty that politics would change.
Such conviction was boosted by polling that showed 85 per cent of us wanted some of the personal or social changes of lockdown to last beyond it, with the majority support behind measures to protect clean air and for a four-day working week. Most wanted the government to prioritise health and wellbeing over economic growth.
Underscoring that was a deeper shift in perspectives, signalling the scale of change required of an economy that’s currently hardwired to consumer capitalism. Yes, we miss cinemas, corner cafes and pub pints – but many have also discovered that quality time with friends or family does not have to be mediated through a paid-for event.
An extraordinary collectivism sprang up in response to the pandemic. The very idea of lockdown – of personal sacrifice for the common good – is itself an act of collectivism. We saw thousands of Covid-19 mutual aid groups mushrooming across the country, 750,000 signing up to be NHS volunteers and others rallying to help food banks or support hot meals schemes for hospital staff. Tabloids mocked “covidiots”, but far more commonplace was people ready to help in crisis, act together and be a part of something bigger.
Yet our shifting priorities and newfound sense of community have no voice in the current political climate. Demand for dramatic change bubbles up from the grassroots, but needs a parliamentary drive and politicians pumping these ideas into our air supply.
This is the factor so often overlooked about the initial popularity of Labour’s former leader Jeremy Corbyn. Under-40s, in particular, weren’t just responding to a party promising to tackle insecure, low paid work, spiralling costs and a housing crisis. Again and again, young people described the appeal of a party leader who championed collectivism.
Labour’s crushing electoral defeat was, in part, delivered by a media that endlessly scoffed at these voters’ visions of a better society, describing policies as an impossible hand out of “free stuff” and collectivism labelled as an attack on personal choice. With a new Labour leader installed, Corbynism in cold storage and a hard right Tory government in power, we are left with the sense that the nation prefers a government that emptily brands Britain as “world beating” to a genuinely better and fairer country.
It is a terrible trick of timing that, at the precise moment when dramatic change is publicly supported and urgently required, the radical left has lost its voice. But if Labour doesn’t act at this vital juncture, reboot a collective political message and reanimate its supporters to build public traction for it, then what exactly is the party for?
Without it, the political potential of this moment will fade. We will be left with nothing but the sentimentality of those blasted lockdown ads. And the memory of the things we realised are so important, along with the possibility of change, will be washed away again, like all those pictures chalked onto the pavement.
Read more
Read more The top-secret transcript that reveals why Trump pulled out of the WHO
