The Government needs therapy, not tins of food
So it’s official, then. The lunatics have taken over the asylum and there’s nothing we can do about it, other than stockpile tins of food and bottled water as we wait for the end. Sorry, did I say “the end”? I meant Brexit, obviously.
This week, Theresa May appeared on national television, eyes a-twitching, to tell us that government’s plans to stockpile blood and food items, as announced by Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, should be reassuring rather than alarming. Stockpiling, said the Prime Minister, is nothing to worry about – it is simply a sensible precaution.
And, of course, there are situations where stockpiling is sensible – when you notice that the people around you are grey-faced, dead-eyed and always trying to take bites out of you, for example. But while the Government does currently have a touch of The Walking Dead about it, someone needs to tell Mrs May that we’re not actually in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. Just yet. After all, panic can be infectious, and while I can just about deal with the current run on airconditioning units and paddling pools, I think a stampede for baked beans and sweetcorn might just about finish me off.
I worry about Mrs May, in the same way that I might worry about a friend experiencing a nervous breakdown. When I see her on television, my instinct is to clutch her to my bosom, tell her everything is going to be OK, and then pack her off to The Priory, where she can spend a month in sedation.
I’m not even joking. I’ve seen the haunted look in her eyes before, in rehab centres and therapy waiting rooms, and even in the mirror when I’ve been struggling myself. It is not the look of a well woman. It is the look of someone so desperate that, just to see it, is enough to make you feel anxious yourself.
Earlier in the week, she visited Newcastle and was asked by a reporter how she liked to relax. “You have one of the most is surely saying something when even the Dead Ringers impression of our Prime Minister sounds more relaxed than the real thing.
Everyone laughed at the Photoshopping of Mrs May as one of Margaret Atwood’s handmaids, being led up the stairs of Blenheim Palace by Donald Trump. But there is nothing funny about the bleak weakness that she seems to exude. The anxiety comes off her in waves; every time she appears in public, she looks like a person with stage fright.
It is, of course, perfectly normal to feel anxious about the prospect of a no-deal Brexit. It would be worrying if Mrs May wasn’t concerned about the state of play with negotiations. But, as any mental health expert will tell you, there is a huge difference between a little bit of anxiety and a full-on breakdown.
Attempting to spin stockpiling as something comforting is the behaviour of someone who has lost all grip on reality. Combined with the heatwave, it’s enough to make you want to pack up and move to the South of France, where the air is at least cooler and the heads of state only ever have to bat off allegations of extramarital affairs.
I’m not trying to make light of mental health when I say that this is madness.
The behaviour of the Government honestly displays all the same symptoms as someone who is in the depths of despair: denial, chaos, a lack of joined-up, logical thinking.
Thank God the summer holidays are upon us all – perhaps a break will give our leaders a chance to step back and see how they look to everyone else, before it is too late. Because it’s not tinned food and blood supplies that this government needs. It’s therapy.