Eat, drink and be merry for England — but not yet

Today, we are told, is Wild Wednesday. As the nation emerges from lockdown, blinking and bewildered like the prisoners in Fidelio, there is an expectation that we will all go mad: bingeing on all the pleasures denied us in recent weeks, splurgeing our savings in crowded places and indulging in an orgy of intimacy. The country is poised to jump out of the fire and into the frying pan, unleashing a new wave of the pandemic.

That is the assumption behind the Government’s three-tier system, which also comes into force today. The severity, pettiness and open-ended nature of the new rules have occasioned much criticism, satire and, last night, by far the largest Tory revolt in the Commons so far in this Parliament. If Sir Keir Starmer had not whipped the Labour rank-and-file into abstention, Boris Johnson might have lost his majority and, conceivably, his job.

Yet the truth is that the country has little appetite for dissipation. As the days shorten and the nights grow cold in this coronavirus winter, most people are grateful to be alive and well. We look forward to Christmas with mixed feelings, knowing that for older or more vulnerable friends and relations, it could be their last. We have had it drummed into us that too much good cheer could damage our health — or even kill us.

So there will be a collective sigh of relief today, but we will venture out gingerly to shop and meet up. Most people will take care rather than carouse. The temptation to throw caution to the winds has been suppressed for so long that it has dwindled into a safety-first reflex. This is a very different Britain from the one that, only a year ago, elected a Prime Minister whom we expected to be a master of revels — the man to get Brexit done and restore normality after years of anxiety and rancour. How differently things have turned out. Instead of an Ealing comedy, we find ourselves in the midst of a Greek tragedy. It is a time, not of celebration, but of lamentation.

Yet the present sombre mood is actually more seasonal than it seems to our secular age. This is the first week of Advent, which in the Christian calendar is a season of fasting, prayer and reflection. Feasting was reserved for the Nativity itself. In recent times, Advent has been reduced to “the run-up to Christmas”, but this year the pressures of commercialisation are less overwhelming than usual. The high street and the local pub need our custom to survive, but right now the likes of Amazon most certainly do not.

This is also a time to remember others less fortunate than oneself: a time for charity, directed both to our nearest, if not always dearest, and also to those in direst need. This year, the voluntary sector has been starved of funds. Rather than go crazy in the newly reopened shops and cafés, we should give more generously than ever before to our favourite causes. With charity, after all, we do ourselves as much good as the recipients.

 “There is a sort of luxury in giving way to the feelings,” confided the young Elizabeth Fry to her diary, more than two centuries ago. “I love to feel for the sorrows of others, to pour wine ans oil into the wounds of the afflicted…I love to feel good — I do what I can to be kind to everybody.” Sentimental? Certainly. But Miss Fry the gushing young Quaker went on to become one of England’s greatest social reformers, the “angel of the prisons”. In hard times, the nation needs more people of all ages and backgrounds in her mould.

In spite of it all, we have reasons to be cheerful. The licensing of the first vaccine holds out the prospect that many of those most at risk will be vaccinated before Christmas, and tens of millions more early in the New Year. The UK is the first to take this momentous step and it is essential that the vast majority of people do take advantage of the immunity that it offers. If it is antisocial to break the rules, to refuse the vaccine is sociopathic. This is not the season for selfishness.

There will be a time to celebrate, but it lies in the future — perhaps the very near future — not the present. Hospitality, like several other industries, is on its knees and deserves our help. The Government should be preparing new legislation to abolish the onerous taxes and long-standing restrictions that have disadvantaged these businesses for decades. It is too soon, though, to lift all the rules that are designed to keep us safe and to which most pubs, restaurants and other venues have adhered. Nor is localisation necessarily the answer. If customers from a Tier 3 city pile into a country pub under Tier 1, the latter instantly turns into the Coronavirus Arms. This Advent, we need to relearn the virtues of patience and moderation. The time is coming, sooner than we think, when life will be worth living again. We will indeed be able to eat, drink and be merry for England — but not yet.

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