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| Labour's Jeremy Corbyn in the House of Commons. Source: Independent (PA) |
There was no contrition after Jeremy Corbyn led the Labour Party to a humiliating defeat at the 2019 General Election. He refused to accept any blame and remained in office.
Ignoring Coronavirus advice from Prof Chris Whitty the Chief medical adviser that people over the age of 70 should take "particular care to minimise their social contact" Jeremy Corbyn said he would not be working from home and would carry on with his duties as normal.
Advice from the Government is designed to keep British citizens as safe as is reasonably possible.
As Leader of the Opposition, Corbyn set an abysmal example demonstrating that he is a loser the country was fortunate to avoid.
To judge from the information currently available, the only parliamentarians at present opting to self-isolate are:
ReplyDelete(a) those who are ill and whose symptoms suggest a possible Covid-19 infection and
(b) those who have very recently been in close contact with such people before their symptoms became evident, but who might nevertheless have passed it on while they were still asymptomatic.
There's no indication thus far that I've seen which suggests that Jeremy Corbyn falls into either of those categories.
So the only difference between him and other MPs and peers carrying on parliamentary business as usual seems to be that he's passed the age of 70. The only sense I can therefore make of your post is that, in the light of the 'coronavirus experience' you're asserting that, henceforth, everyone should retire at seventy!
Or that it's a mere petty partisan point.
The Government has a well thought out, developing strategy based on the best medical and scientific advice to minimise contact with the aim of easing the strain on the NHS. Rather than set a good example for the nation, Mr Corbyn signalled that he would ignore that advice and carry on as if there were no problem, thus undermining the Government's strategy on social distancing.
Deletehttps://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-guidance-on-social-distancing-and-for-vulnerable-people/guidance-on-social-distancing-for-everyone-in-the-uk-and-protecting-older-people-and-vulnerable-adults
Well, let's put it to the test. I see that Sir Bill Cash made a contribution to a Commons debate exactly a week ago - indeed, on the topic of coronavirus. Bill Cash will be eighty in a couple of months' time.
DeleteAs he too is apparently 'carrying on' as usual in a crowded House of Commons 'as if there were no problem', do you extend your strictures in respect of 'undermining the Government's strategy on social distancing' to him as well?
Mercifully, all Bishops of the Church in Wales have to go at 70.
DeleteThank God for small mercies.
Indeed. I remember compulsory retirement at 70 for clergy being introduced in the Welsh province in the early 1970s. I can also recall examples and instances which underlined why it was omplemented!
DeleteThough I think the differences of circumstance between clergy and elected politicians are pretty plain. If enough voters conclude that their elected member has become too decrepit to function, they have the option to remove him or her at the next election.
Whereas the reality - or maybe, in disestablished Wales, the convention - of the 'parson's freehold' used to mean that an incumbent, once instituted, was well-nigh unshiftable.
Which puts me in mind of a story from those days. A bishop had received several representations from one of his parishes that their incumbent, who was nearing 90, was now rather too frail, mentally and physically, to fulfil his ministry. Accordingly, the bishop decided to write to the parish priest gently proposing that he might now honourably consider retirement.
Which provoked the following wholly dismissive response from the indignant incumbent:
'When your predecessor but four instituted me to this benefice, fifty-two years ago this coming summer, at no point did he indicate to me that my appointment was of a temporary nature'!
Did he end the letter, John, with:
DeleteI remain!
Yours faithfully.
Seymour
It was Fr Kingdon, Vicar of Bridgerule in the Diocese of Exeter from 1888 until his death in 1958. I had the story from Canon Rice of Exeter who was Bishop's Chaplain at the time and witnessed the conversation.
Delete@ Matthew:
DeleteThank you for that, Matthew. It's a very long time since I heard the story, and it was (tactfully!) unattributed. Perhaps at the time the correspondence was fairly recent!
@ Seymour:
I seem to recall that the letter commenced: 'My dear Lord Bishop' and concluded 'I remain, sir, your Lordship's respectful servant'.
'Obedient servant' presumably, in the particular circumstances, being inappropriate as the incumbent had no disposition to be anything of the sort.
In the original version it was a casual conversation at a celebration lunch to mark a significant anniversary, not a letter. The Bishop had made the immensely long and tiring journey from Exeter to Bridgerule what seemed only a very short time before for an earlier significant anniversary; perhaps it was to discourage the good Father from having cause to invite him for yet a third significant anniversary that he made the suggestion. In the end God solved that problem.....
DeleteIn 1958 the Bishop of Exeter would presumably have been the über-prelatical R.C. Mortimer, whom one might have thought capable of a counterblast in kind.
Delete@ Matthew:
DeleteIntriguing stories tend to get embellished as they're transmitted, so I think it's quite plausible that what was originally 'a casual conversation' should over time be transformed into a correspondence. However it was in the shape of a correspondence that. long ago, I heard the tale.
@ Oliver Nicholson:
I'm sure you're correct. I'd more or less forgotten Bishop Mortimer, but your post recalls to my mind his seminal - though somewhat indigestible - book 'The Elements of Moral Theology' which was prescibed reading for my post-graduate theology degree.
Working on his allotment he sets a good example and fortunately in the future he will be free to spend much more time there.
ReplyDeleteThe Archbishop of Canterbury has ordered the immediate cancellation of all public worship. The ban could last months and of course covers Holy Week and Easter. Surely individual clergy should decide. I cannot believe that he has suggested that clergy should turn up to church, set up a webcam and live stream. Total nonsense. Many clergy do not know how to live stream and many parishioners do not have the means to tune in. He may as well suggest youtube! Are people not able to decide for themselves? I would attend worship as normal but my computer illiterate vicar is about to enjoy an enforced extended sabbatical. He has already locked the church for the duration.
ReplyDeleteCymraes yn Lloegr
Welby is a complete hypocrite.
DeleteI am looking forward to seeing whether he insists the entire Church of England pays all its staff on zero hours contracts in full for the duration of the current crisis.
The smart money says he won't.
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ReplyDeleteThat strikes me as absolutely the right approach. People who are prepared to run the risk of meeting together to participate in the liturgy should have the opportunity to do so. Those who feel that the current crisis is such that they should refrain ought also to be free to do so. I don't believe that there's any absolute 'right' and 'wrong' in all of this.
DeleteAs long as at least one other adult is in attendance
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DeleteI'm afraid there is an absolute right and wrong. Fr David Lloyd may have the virus, even thought he has no symptoms. He may never have symptoms. If this is the case he will likely transmit it to anyone who attends mass. They will then transmit it to their family members, some of whom may be in high risk groups. Indeed, given the age profile of a church congregation, many of the them are likely to be at high risk. Considering that this discussion was started by a tendentious blog post criticising an elderly man for not self-isolating, these comments are staggeringly complacent and ignorant.
ReplyDeleteTrue; he may. Or, alternatively, one of his flock may be carrying the virus and transmit it to him.
DeleteBut given the blasts of continuous information which we're all now receiving, people can hardly be ignorant of the inherent possible risks around the choices which they make. Given that our society's not structured on the mainland China model, people will make their own judgements
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DeleteJE wrote "people will make their own judgements".
DeleteLatest reports indicate that a third of people in Wales are not heeding Government advice on coronavirus thus aiding the spread of the disease.
They show no regard for the health of others or for the safety of NHS staff who are putting their lives on the line while the thoughtless selfishly please themselves.
@ Ancient Briton:
DeletePersonally - even if I were still part of the ecclesial community, which now I'm not - I'd be inclined to opt to follow what appears to be the consensus of the advice from the scientific community, which is to avoid intimate getherings - which I'd say sharing the Eucharist is. And I'd cite aa my precedent I Maccabees 2:40-41.
But there are perspectives other than that one. The late Dom Gregory Dix made his magisterial work 'The Shape of the Lirurgy' less indigestible to the ordinary reader by incorporating into his narrative a variety of poignant human anecdotes which his academic researches had uncovered.
One such was the suspension of Christian worship in an area of north Africa - if I remember rightly somewhere in what's now modern Libya - as a consequence of a persecution initiated by a local Roman governor in the late third or early fourth century.
For many months the local Christian community kept their heads down and didn't gather together to offer the Eucharist; but in the end a group of them approached their bishop to ask if Eucharistic celebration could be resumed, at least for those who wished it, because 'they could no longer bear the lack of it'.
If Fr Lloyd and some of his flock feel the same, they can claim ancient precedent.
To be clear JE, my comment was directed at revellers who ignore government advice on social distancing the consequences of which are graphically illustrated here https://twitter.com/kimchspr/status/1240480758172545028
DeleteCertainly I have had to ask people to stand back from me at supermarket checkouts (I am 66) - but they don't do it automatically and don't usually step back far enough even after I've asked.
ReplyDeleteI'm baffled by the official CiW advise........you can have a christening of up to 10 people but all weddings are cancelled (C of E are allowing weddings if only 5 people attend) Then Archbishop John wants Churches open daily for people to use to pray. With many vergers etc elderly, who opens, shuts and guards these open churches. I accept some areas they will be safe unguarded but other parts they will be ransacked!
ReplyDeleteSomeone ought to tell Shirley to open the Churches himself if he wants them open.
DeleteHe's a complete waste of Oxygen.
Archbishop Welby and the BBC announced that there would be a service on Sunday morning to make up for the laity being locked out of public worship. You could not make this up - the BBC will be broadcasting a repeat of Songs of Praise from last summer from St David's Cathedral at 11.45 am and relabelled Morning Worship. It is nothing of the sort. How patronising. Should we expect the same on Easter Day, when 100% of clergy will receive the sacrament and 100% of the laity treated like lepers and excluded. As the churches in my diocese will be locked for at least four months, possibly up to 12 months, financially stressed churches will not be able to survive on fresh air, in the absence of regular giving. Wholesale locking out of the laity could and should have been avoided. Other options could have been considered to stop the growing disaffection and resentment. Given the low attendance in many cathedrals and churches, social distancing would not be a problem. If communion is a problem, then why not have Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer, instead of locking the laity out.
ReplyDeleteCymraes yn Lloegr
Luckily I'm a protestant, so don't need a priest to 'do' communion (oooh - contraversial!)
DeleteGwell ateb fydd,Cymraes,I gloi'r esgobion allan !
ReplyDeleteAfter considering the responses to my original post - now removed - I (you) have changed my mind about leaving the doors of the church open during the times I will be saying Mass. God be with you all during this awful time and if I can be of any help to you please contact me.
ReplyDelete