The Year They Took Our Breath (+1 minute)

End of year scorecard: B+. Could do well if only it would apply itself. Easily influenced but can try harder.

That was the year that was. It doesn't really feel like New Years Eve. Perhaps because it's not pissing down with rain. Instead it's horrifically cold and looks set to remain for the foreseeable. Just the sort of weather the health service doesn't need while trying to fight a virus. Aside from human bodies, they are the only one doing so. The government has largely given up. Despite while the increasingly creepy Gavin Williamson says, schools will not be ready. How can they be; they aren't designed for this crisis and no support has been given to effect necessary change. Are kids and staff really going to sit for hours in classrooms made freezing because of windows having to be open? Do the Tories care?

When I recall the initial lockdown it is, to now, as the beforetimes was to that period. A different world. Despite - and not to diminish - the horror and death, that was a paradise compared to where we are now. The weather was on our side and we were fortunate it wasn't then, as it is now, the start of winter. A bleakr not-even-midwinter, despite the sun pouring onto my screen as I type.

I think there was a kind of novelty to it back then, an innocence before fatigue. I haven't been - thankfully - directly affected by this virus. I am lucky in that respect. A great many were, and are, not. But I can speak only to my experience. The sun was shining, the weather was pleasant, almost in ignorance, even defiance, of circumstances. That provided a relief. There was less traffic, less aircraft noise. These are good things, even if they originate in suffering. That is simply the nature of life. 

Then somewhere along the line that innocence was lost. We are weary now. Too many people are too tired. Too many people are not doing what they need to get over this, and that is the bitterest irony of all. While they are somewhat culpable blame must ultimately be placed at the feet of the msot shambolic grasping state I've ever known. Everything they have done has failed, and it needn't have been so. Even though these are unprecedented times for us, these are not uncharted waters. There are places we could have looked to for guidance. Examples to follow. But the arrogance of Tories is always to be underestimated. It has allowed the government to bludgeon through a terrible Brexit deal that will diminish us while half the country, and rising, burns in fever. Every briefing or press conference, at the three word lectern of confusion, just further reveals how lacking in anything remotely resembling competence or statecraft Boris Johnson is. Covid is a torch shone at him throwing up a shadow; a bumbling oaf who thinks he can 'ra ra ra' his way through this. Furiously shaking hands with a virus and nearly killing himself. Oh what might have been.

(Not to be outdone, Crying Matt quickly followed suit and dutifully surrendered to his microbial master. Now he's pretending to be upset in a TV studio in order to impress, of all people, Piers Morgan.)

Yes well.

Now we are here, with two vaccines on the loose. It will take the best part of 2021, and perhaps the rest of us, to see it through. I reckon it will take at least 6 months, assuming a consistent 2 million jabs a week, to get everyone vaccinated. But to assume nothing will go wrong just seems woefully naive. Look who's in charge? They haven't even done 2 million in the few weeks since the program started. They've spent a decade dismantling and selling off the NHS to the point that doctors are unable to provide both regular care and administer a vaccine. They won't listen though.

That is the lesson to take forward. It is, as it has always been, down to us. The only people that can save us...is us. The Tories will never change. They aren't going to learn. I'm sure they've handed the vaccine administering role to Serco or the like. Schools will open, the virus will remain. I want to be positive, for the start of the year. It is a time to start afresh, even if just in spirit. I hope, with the calming of the Christmas rush and the continued lockdown restritions, that the virus calms down. It has to, we have no choice. The government has abandoned everything else to enter into a vaccine race versus the virus. There is no second prize.

Happy New Year.