Lockdown in Soho

I am old — very old perhaps — living alone in a small flat without a garden or a balcony. Technically I think I count as vulnerable but not as shielded. This is not as bad as it sounds. The small flat is in a rather smart little block in Soho and the block is pretty much deserted as the toffs have long since decamped to their country places. My neighbour is a charming retired lady who lives in the penthouse above me. Significantly younger than me, she has kindly taken to doing my supermarket shopping and generally keeping a long-distance eye on me.

For more than a decade we had greeted each other politely in the lift or lobby and vaguely invited each other home for a drink “soon”. Now I have discovered that she was a senior news executive with a major American television network and has a fascinating professional history. As I was a political journalist and broadcaster we happily exchange reminiscences and work-talk via our mobiles.

Throughout it all, I took the advice given by Boris to “use good British common sense” in interpreting the often conflicting advice and guidance, the confusing rules and regulations which poured forth from assorted government sources. My common sense told me that I might — really — sink into depression or go completely doolally if  I did not move beyond my front door for months on end. So, masked and gloved, I pushed my luck a little and allowed myself the standard hour long exercise walk through deserted but sun-flooded Soho streets.

Springtime in silent Soho a month or two ago proved a delight. With no traffic the air was sweet and clean. You could cross the road without risking your life. As I walked I had time to stand and stare, building by building, at the remains of our astonishing complex local urban landscape. Here the remains of a gracious Georgian terrace. There a tarted-up 18^th century slum ally. Good Housekeeping’s classy new block of research and teaching kitchens face a former cheapo strip club. There are buildings with massive windows on the attic floor. Must have beeen workshops which needed light. Lot of art deco office blocks remain. For the first time I noticed what must have been a mid-Victorian synagogue. You can tell by the Star of David and other symbols discreetly worked into the facade. I had time to stare carefully at the house on my street where Shelley lived. And the house where Marx and family rented a couple of rooms over what is now Quo Vadis, one of the poshest resturants in our part of town.

But even in those calm moments, the politics was ever-present, playing on my mind. Was Keir Starmer right about Boris “winging it” irresponsibly? How do I rate the performance of our Glorious Leader and his minions so far? All over the place, really. You can forgive them for being slow off the mark. You can perhaps forgive them for flirting with herd immunity; and then suddenly lurching to switch the country off and lock most of us up (or “down”).  Ditching test and trace for many weeks and then reviving it. By keeping the ports and airports open for business and potentially for virus carriers. You might forgive them for simply ignoring our the problems facing care homes to make the genuinely amazing NHS hospitals seem even better than they were (I don’t). But beyond that?

My biggest beef is over the calculated nonsense of the science which has supposedly dictated  every policy decision made by the Government. The truth is that there is no such thing as the science as far as the virus is concerned. Instead, there are groups of distinguished scientists working towards the point where we can talk of the science. In this unenviable position, the Government should have been listening to the tentative thoughts of all of them, and then making  political  decisions, knowing — and stating publicly — that these were political judgements calls.

The spinning of the number of daily tests, the number of deaths and the supplies of PPE have become a public joke. (Pairs of medical gloves were counted as two items to boost the numbers.) The official UK Statistics Authority recently criticised the Government for its shoddy, incomplete and misleadingly-presented figures.

As for Dominic Cummings — that affair has hurt both his standing and that of No 10. But the real damage has been done, and is still being done, by a Government that appears not trust the people, and that uses spin, bluff and evasion at its principle tools.

Sitting in an almost empty Soho Square day after day I marvelled at the astonishing greenness of the ancient plane trees. The pigeons really did become more tame; bolder and more numerous day by day. They flew in great flocks, lower and closer to me than before. When they landed you could walk among them. Do you know they have tiny green and red irridescent neck feathers? I didn’t. Plenty of tree squirrels came out of hibernation and on a couple of occasions an urban fox sauntered by.

When I did run across another intrepid explorer we exchanged a cheery “Good Morning. Lovely Day.” It didn’t feel incongruous. I know many people have been through hell, and that the government has, infuriatingly, failed to treat us like adults. But my lockdown has left me calmer and happier than I was when it was imposed upon me.