I had no choice – the disregard for children was appalling
Of all the travesties and tragedies of the pandemic, the treatment of children is arguably the most egregious. Almost three years after the blind panic over the virus triggered the first ill-fated decision to shut schools, the casualness with which a generation of little ones was sacrificed so that politicians could continue to insist they were doing everything possible to “save lives,” should still exercise all of us.
More than anything else, it is the appalling disregard for the well-being of young people, which should have been paramount, that has driven me to release these Whatsapp messages: even in the face of a threatening message from Mr Hancock at 1.20am on Wednesday – hours after The Daily Telegraph published.
As a mother of three, I saw first hand how quickly the initial excitement of a week or so’s extra holiday in the unseasonably hot pre-easter sunshine of March 2021 gave way to that boredom with which all parents are familiar during long school breaks.
As it became evident that Boris Johnson’s initial call for “three weeks to squash the sombrero” marked the indefinite suspension of so much of what is normal and fun about being a child, and the full might of the state was harnessed to convince little ones that the world outside their front door was a dark and dangerous place, I could see the confusion and frustration setting in.
When would they be allowed to see friends again? When would the daily battle with glitchy broadband to connect to online lessons end? What would birthdays be like, when celebrations were limited to a bit of cake, bought after standing the regulation two metres apart from frightened-looking shoppers in the supermarket queue? How much “home schooling” could any of us tolerate, and was there any point to it?
As was blindingly obvious, these were of course first-world problems.
Like the children of most better-off families, my lot were lucky, living in a nice house, in a nice part of the country, with entertainment. They had siblings and pets to play with, laptops from which to learn and maintain contact with friends; a garden and countryside as a giant playground. They’d won the lockdown lottery.
But what about others? How were the children of drug-addicted, abusive, dysfunctional parents faring, stuck in overcrowded, airless flats in inner-city tower blocks? Before too long, many didn’t even have public parks, as council zealots busied themselves taping up swings and roundabouts and police officers threatened to arrest folk for sitting on the grass.
Early fears over the danger posed by metal surfaces were soon assuaged by evidence that transmission was largely airborne, but that didn’t stop the unhinged application of gallons of sanitiser to everything children saw and touched outside the home.
Biohazards did not lurk everywhere – but that was the warped impression the authorities gave. Classrooms did remain open for a handful of children deemed particularly vulnerable. Sadly, all too often this safety net failed. It ought to have been obvious that those most in desperate need of active protection – or at the very least a watchful eye from teachers and other grown-ups outside the home – were the least likely to be encouraged to continue going to school.
Thanks to the work of the Centre for Social Justice think tank, we now know that when all this nonsense was finally over, as many as 100,000 youngsters never went back to school. Referred to as “ghost children”, they dropped off school registers during lockdown, never to return.
What happened to them? Are they OK? What does their future hold? Who knows. Certainly not the Government!
‘Ghost children’ dropped off school registers during lockdown, never to return. What happened to them?
Last year, Ofsted’s chief inspector admitted that the authorities have “no handle” on these missing children. What a damning indictment.
Worst of all are the sickening murders of children by close relatives. While the Government fixated on saving those in their 80s, social services dropped their guard.
Logan Mwangi, a five-year-old boy from Bridgend, died at the hands of his mother and stepfather. A damning report found that Covid restrictions became a cover for his appalling abuse.
Then there’s the harrowing case of little Arthur Labinjo-hughes, murdered by his stepmother after what the judge called a “campaign of appalling cruelty”. Anne Longfield, the former children’s commissioner for England, has described how he “slipped from view” when he was no longer able to go to school.
Decision-making about school closures was driven by a political fixation with being seen to “do something” – a short-termism obsessed with reducing infection rates today at any price tomorrow.
We also see craven weakness in the face of pressure from trade unions. Even when schools returned, millions of young people were forced to spend months with clammy bits of cloth clamped over their faces.
No grandparent would want their grandchildren to be deprived of a normal childhood and education for the best part of two years to reduce the risk of illness to those who have lived very long lives. Sadly, that’s not the kind of polling anyone commissioned.
All this is unforgivable. It is a sad reality but the life chances of some have been damaged irreparably. Those responsible should admit this and vow never to inflict such harm again.