Comment With...barry Speker

"Welcome back to 'normal life'......"

What a joy to have Northern Insight here again and the threatened resumption of commercial, social and civilised life. Those old enough to remember the old test card TV message ‘Normal Service will be resumed as soon as possible’ but not so likely or achievable after the pandemic. In the very early days of shutdown I was prompted to put my own thoughts into verse, entitled ‘Coping in Isolation’. I will not set out all ten verses but these were the last two:

How did it happen? Were we prepared?

Why not predicted? Who really cared?

Was it a strategy? Who made the plan?

How will this stand in the history of man?

Will we recover? How will we show it?

Will there be normal life as we know it?

Some will be praying, some are just hoping

We will all search for our own way of coping.

(If you would really like all 10 verses email me!)

I was the recipient of the NHS letter for the ‘particularly vulnerable’, sentencing me to be shielded for 12 weeks of isolation, ending by a Government announcement as I write this. But Deputy Chief Scientific Adviser Jonathan Van-Tam warns us “Don’t tear the pants out of it and don’t go further than the guidance says”. I avoid the temptation of reference to Dom and the Castle, other than to regret the obsessive politicising of the issue and the bloodthirsty witch-hunt style of the media throughout the crisis. So many double standards, we may all need to have our eyes tested.

We can look for the good things which have emerged – the performance of our magnificent NHS and key workers, appreciated at last (will it continue?), numerous instances of altruism, generosity and good neighbourliness, admirable restraint and compliance by the majority of the population.

Like many of you I have filled my time with activities which we would not get round to. In my case the reading list included Daniel Deronda by George Eliot, The Hope by Herman Wouk and Love in the Blitz by Eileen Alexander; streaming guitar renditions such as Last Rose of Summer, Concerto de Aranjez, Schindler’s List and Mr Tambourine Man; countless meetings on Zoom, Teams, Starleaf; considering whether there is enough time to learn the words of Bob Dylan’s newly issued epic, the 17 minute ‘Murder Most Foul’.

Concert bookings gone, trips for holidays and business cancelled, court hearings conducted from home by telephone. The picking up of the baton will not be easy for all and in many cases impossible with companies and businesses driven out of existence. Life will have changed as to what the public wants and needs.

Those who felt reluctant or unable to shop or order online have acquired the skill and the habit to do so. How will this reduce the wish or tendency to make such regular use of retail? What will this do to the High Street? Rather than queuing in supermarkets to find ever relocated aisles, the experience of home delivery may now be the shopping of choice. What will continued distancing do to pubs, wine bars, restaurants and coffee shops? How will theatres, cinemas and concert halls function with less than half capacity? What of the cost of holidays with fewer seats available?

These and many more imponderables will gradually be revealed in the daily announcements by the PM and the new household names of Hancock, Sunak, Raab, Gove, Williamson and their flanking Scientific Advisers. To justify the opening of businesses, schools, universities, sports activities, leisure places and hairdressers will need logical links with graphs, testing, tracing, PPE provision and management precautions.

The prospect of football matches with canned crowd noise will be quite an innovation. There will be many available recordings of the Newcastle United fans so that editors can match up the play with encouragement, frustration, abuse, peroration and occasionally celebration. This will include derision at dubious refereeing decisions and obscene protests at goals by the opposition. Will crowds ever return in such numbers – leaving aside the marathon on-off sale of NUFC to Saudi Arabia?

One noticeable habit change is the impending cashless society. According to Link which runs the ATM network, the volume of cash withdrawals from cash machines has declined by 62%. Debit cards had already become the most popular form of payment by 2017. Paying by card or smartphone has accelerated during the pandemic, the upper limit on contactless rising to £45. The acceleration is partly due to online shopping and to hygiene rules. This is despite our cleaner, washable polymer banknotes. As health experts tell us the virus can stay on coins and notes as on other surfaces, some are refusing cash and insisting on card payment.

In Sweden 80% of transactions are cashless but they are slowing the move to a cashless society in consideration of poorer people without bank accounts and the elderly who may be disadvantaged.

Coincidentally, cash use is preferred by drug dealers and terrorists who wish to avoid traceability. We have already experienced theoretical protests from burglars who complained that the shutdown had ruined their ‘business’ as everyone stays at home. Rishi did not extend the furlough for them.

Another benefit is that cashless impedes the black economy as all transactions are recorded which prevents tax evasion. This will increase tax revenue for repayment of the eye-watering billions in loans and support for many struggling businesses. It will also reduce waiting times in supermarkets and in paying for your flat white.