A really long sleep, and then a brisk breakfast to be ready to walk over to St Luke's to preach, while Fr Rhys celebrated. For the first time since the pandemic took hold he were officially allowed to sing hymns again - behind our masks. There were sixteen of us in a church that can holy two hundred and fifty. I think it will wake a while to get back into the habit of singing heartily. I had some favourable comments about my rather sober reflective sermon afterwards. It's difficult to know how to be a sort of spiritual cheerleader when the world is in such a mess. How to be appropriately penitential in thought, word and deed is what we must now learn.
When we returned yesterday Clare picked a pound of blackcurrants from the plants in her garden, enough for a couple of dishes of blackcurrant and apple crumble, one of my most favourite dishes. After salmon and roast veggies for lunch we had a first serving of what is to my mind one of the tastiest of all puddings. Normally I don't bother at all with pudding, but blackcurrant and apple crumble I find irresistible!
I walked for over an hour in the park after lunch, surprised at how few people were out compared to the usual Sunday afternoon. It was cloudy, mild and a little windy - were people staying indoors to watch a football match? Or gone to the beach, I wonder?
After the weekend's exposure of health secretary Matt Hancock, caught on camera kissing one of his aides behind locked doors, spied upon by a secret camera, he has announced his resignation and the end of his marriage in one statement. But not before Boris Johnston had refused to sack him and insisted this was of no importance to the job in hand. He totally misjudged the growing mood of indignation from the public and from some fellow Tory MPs openly calling on Hancock to resign. Naturally an enquiry is now taking place to discover not only who put the camera there, but how the security video footage was leaked to the news media. As if the affair of Dominic Cummings breaking lockdown rules wasn't enough to expose the belief of the ruling elite that they are exceptions to the the rules they make. The Prime Minister's error of judgement undermines the credibility of his government. How long will he last after this?
When I got back from my walk, there was a Radio Four investigative programme called 'File on Four' which reported on an exchange of emails involving Cummings and Hancock around the time the first UK lock-down was imposed, in which a piece of work was commissioned from a health statistics company to monitor pandemic data independently of work already being carried out by another quasi NHS body that is working on digitzing NHS services. The exchange of emails concerned a sum of half a million pounds in advance of work to be commissioned immediately (because of the crisis) without any scrutiny process in place about the objectives or outcome of the work or its value for money.
Moreover, this was to happen secretly without proper government consultation and presented as a fait accompli, justified by the urgency of the situation. The scandal of undermining good governance is augmented by the fact that there seem to be a certain conflict of interest due to the relationships between the service providers and Hancock. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the news this coming week. Already the government has come in for serious criticism about irresponsible and erroneous expenditure in the procurement of PPE in the first critical months of the pandemic.
As a weekend op-ed in the Guardian stated today, lies, deceit and false promises which resulted in the success of the brexit vote laid a foundation for the perpetuation of this culture in the ensuing years. Not only does it undermine the credibility of the government, but in removing the possibility of honest discourse on issues which require thorough and well informed debate, it undermines the whole democratic process. I can only hope and pray that citizens generally will awaken to this disturbing nature of this damaging reality and start demanding a return to more honourable and honest ways in public service.
This evening I watched the first episode of a French psychological thriller on More Four Walter Presents, in between phone calls with Owain and Rachel. This one's set in Corsica, and the French is clear and very easy to follow, which makes for easy watching, as the sub-titles are less than essential.
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