Coronavirus: Are we scapegoating groups unfairly? And sharing the burdens fairly? 

Any crisis on the scale of Covid-19 is bound to produce negative, divisive emotions as well as the positive, unifying “Blitz spirit”. So far we have seen the beginnings of a blame game, hostility towards certain groups and the inevitable selfishness of others. All these attitudes are driven by fear and resentment. The antidote to most negativity is to persuade the country that the burdens and sacrifices are being shared fairly, even if the deaths are concentrated among the elderly and those whose health was already precarious. 

Many people have drawn comparisons with the Second World War. That, too, generated tensions which occasionally flared up into scapegoating or other conflicts. The internment of “enemy aliens” — most of whom were Jewish or other refugees from the Nazis who had already lost everything except their lives — was a particularly ugly episode.

When the war began, some 73,000 people in Britain were classified as enemy aliens and divided by tribunals into three categories: a few hundred in Category A, who were interned in camps, mainly on the Isle of Man; a few thousand in Category B, who were kept under surveillance; and Category C, some 66,000, who were deemed innocent. But when France fell in May 1940, spy hysteria swept the land and Churchill issued his order: “Collar the lot!” All enemy aliens in southern England, regardless of category, were interned in grim conditions. Some were shipped to Canada and public opinion began to show more sympathy when one ship, carrying more than a thousand German and Italian internees, was sunk with huge loss of life. By the end of 1940, after much soul-searching, most of the enemy aliens had been released. Many went on to fight or perform other vital war work. The whole story was a classic case of scapegoating, driven by fear and panic.

Today, in the coronavirus pandemic, we have yet to see one group officially targeted in this way. But in the jungle warfare of the Twittersphere, all kinds of conspiracy theories proliferate and stigmatising flourishes. Intergenerational resentments have emerged, with some blaming young people for congregating in open places or otherwise ignoring social distancing. Others have blamed the old, who are said to be insouciant about the risks of going out and socialising. Because the elderly are especially at risk, some are questioning whether the Government was right to take such drastic measures to protect them. A particularly noxious form of ageism has emerged, implying a kind of Darwinian attitude in which the elderly should be sacrificed to enable the rest to carry on as usual.

Another tension has been widely reported from rural areas where middle-class urban families have escaped to their second homes. Local people, who may resent the wealth of the weekenders anyway, are now said to be suspicious or even openly hostile, because they fear that these intruders are bringing the virus with them. It is rumoured that the outsiders are treating the whole thing like a holiday, ignoring precautions and putting the older villagers at risk. Most people are of course too sensible to allow these resentments to fester and risky behaviour is not the monopoly of the Chelsea tractor brigade. But these myths are destructive of the social solidarity that is required in an existential crisis.

The phenomenon of panic buying has of course been another source of enmity. That it is irrational behaviour with an obviously unfair impact on the vulnerable has not prevented it causing shortages and hardship. There is no upside, except perhaps for the retailers, in such stockpiling. But we should keep it in proportion. About £1 billion worth of food and other items have been hoarded. This is less than a third of what is sold in a week normally. The supermarkets are now adapting to the new circumstances and people are calming down. But calls for Government rationing continue by those who have no idea what wartime rationing was actually like.

 A more rational response to the exigencies of social distancing is the food parcel scheme announced over the weekend for the 1.5 million people who are especially at risk. This was advocated last week on TheArticle by Michael Pinto-Duschinsky here. The idea of care packages is not only desirable in itself, because people who cannot shop for themselves may be in real and urgent need, but is also an expression of solidarity that has wider implications. Announcing the scheme, the Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick said that it would initially be paid for by the Government, because this was the simplest and most practical solution. He suggested that methods might be found to enable those who could afford it to pay for themselves.

However, this raises a wider issue. It is obvious to every taxpayer that there is a limit to the capacity of the state to pay the nation’s wages and salaries, to cover losses and liabilities, at the same time as funding a huge increase in the cost of the NHS. We have, in effect, socialised the cost of the full-scale economic depression caused by coronavirus. But we are not doing so fairly. The crisis is hitting some groups much harder than others — notably the self-employed. Salaried employees can expect to receive 80 per cent of their normal income up to £2,500 a month, while the self-employed are left to apply for benefits of less than £400 a month.

And then there are the rich. So far, philanthropy has played very little part in bridging the gap between the cost of the pandemic and what the country can afford. How many of the 1,000 names featured in the annual Rich List complied by the Sunday Times has so far offered to make a financial contribution? The Government has cajoled and threatened us with curfews and lockdowns, but employers have merely been urged to “stand by your employees”. Some big corporations have evidently not got the memo. Amazon, the richest firm on the planet and a large employer in the UK, is alleged to have told staff to take unpaid leave and offered those who get the virus a mere fortnight’s paid leave. If true, this kind of conduct should be culpable. Small businesses that are desperately trying to play by the new rules while keeping heads above water should not have to watch the giants riding roughshod over the pleas of the Prime Minister.

One example of business stepping up to the plate has been the rapid adaptation of industry to produce ventilators for the NHS. The same impressive entrepreneurial spirit is at work on producing new tests and vaccines. Eton College has set a magnificent example by throwing open its doors to the children of key workers and the vulnerable. 

But there have also been less edifying incidents, such as the “Harley Street doctor” (who was actually based elsewhere) who raked in millions a week by selling Covid-19 testing kits at inflated prices. Profiteering is the opposite of philanthropy. In wartime, penal taxation, rationing and the requisitioning of stately homes meant that for rich and poor, it was a genuinely shared experience. In the present pandemic, a readiness by the wealthiest to muck in together with the less fortunate has been conspicuous mainly by its absence. Fair play is the quintessential British virtue. Let us show the world that coronavirus can still be conquered on the playing fields of Eton.