POET DONNE’S WORDS STRIKE A CHORD DURING COVID

“NO MAN is an island, entire of itself,” wrote John Donne in 1624 in his poem against isolationism. It might curiously serve as a text for this endless pandemic.

Covid- 19 is proving very divisive. It is fragmenting the nation, dividing communities, some only a bridge apart, currently bearing more heavily on the North than the South outside London and keeping families apart. Will it be a good old- fashioned Christmas or some new- fangled virtual Noel?

It is underlining Donne’s point. We are inter- dependent and consequently all have a responsibility, especially in these mobile days, for our actions because what we do can sorely affect others.

It could be argued that Brexit is an offence to Donne who was writing in the context of Europe. But we are, I trust, eventually Brexiting not Europe but a particular kind of Europe that undermines national identity and democracy.

We shall remain committed – more committed than most Europeans – to European defence through Nato and the preservation of their democracies.

We know, as an island people, no man is an island. If we don’t stand together, we risk varying threats from the East.

On the face of it, the pandemic is splitting the UK. It has certainly given independence legs in devolved Scotland and Wales, if not Northern Ireland. They are going their own way in handling a virus that does not respect borders.

Already Tony Blair is getting it in the neck for trying to combat the independence movement with devolution.

As one on the record in this column of being in favour of decisions being taken as close to the people as possible, I have to tread carefully on this subject.

I argued the case after Ted Heath’s re- organisation of local government in 1974 which absorbed my native Hebden Bridge into greater Halifax.

This abolished Hebden Royd UDC – my father was its chairman in 1957- 58 – and Hepton Rural Council through which I learned my trade as a journalist. Yet they eminently served their purpose under the old West Riding CC.

What’s wrong with the three Ridings under a devolved Yorkshire in turn devolving responsibilities to cities, towns and revivified districts?

Nothing, I would argue, provided – and this is the clincher – all recognise their responsibilities to each other and the nation.

It is the clincher because our present local government system is a ramp and has been for at least 40 years.

Its overspending, running at £ 1bn a year during the 1980s, gave birth to the ill- fated poll tax which was intended to make councils more careful with their spending by requiring every citizen, subject to income, and not just a minority to foot the bill.

Long before coronavirus struck, many local authorities were living beyond their means. Now they are in dire straits, even though the Government is spraying money at them like water. Yet they still tend to blame it for the mess their balance sheets represent.

Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, is the latest to play this political game over help in meeting the cost of coronavirus. South Yorkshire’s elected mayor, Dan Jarvis, is evidently made of more wholesome stuff. I know who I would prefer go have managing my devolved government.

I suspect Jarvis is only too well aware that you can have all the devolution in the world and end up worse off if central government spends – or is induced to spend – and borrows its way into economic trouble.

It is no help to the people

Coronavirus has seriously weakened our financial position as a nation.

if unemployment, inflation and taxes rise and billions are necessarily thrown away in interest paid to keep the wolf from the door.

We were still not paying our way 10 years after the last crisis when coronavirus hit us and now our central budget deficit has increased as Chancellor Rishi Sunak repeatedly tries to defend jobs.

Coronavirus has thus seriously weakened our financial position as a nation. And in a globalised, Covid- hit world it renders us more vulnerable in crises.

If ever a situation outside war called for a collective national effort to recover our fortunes, this is it. Sherlock Holmes would say :“It’s elementary, my dear Watson.” John Donne could say: “I told you so 400 years ago”.

Donne, in the same poem, wrote “Never send for whom, the bell tolls; it tolls for thee”.

Today the bell is tolling for an enormous bill running into hundreds of billions that our grandchildren and their children will have to pay.