This week’s “Blue Monday” is, allegedly, the most depressing day of the year. With friends banished, fears for the health and livelihoods of loved ones, most children unable to attend school and the pubs shut, there are more grounds than in most years to feel “down”. And yet…there are always grounds for optimism.
I discussed with the local police Friday the issues being presented by lockdown. In truth the overwhelming majority of us are doing a great job in keeping each other safe. No matter how frustrating, people are sticking by the rules, adopting social distancing and wearing masks when needed. In doing so they are recognising the need to look after each other by cutting the risk of transmission. In a society that, rightly, hugely values freedom and individualism, people will still go the extra mile for others: those who they know and indeed those who they don’t.
Speaking to the police more broadly, crime has fallen in our area over the last year. Horsham, already a relatively safe place, has overall got that little bit safer. Partly this reflects people being at home but also, perhaps, people keeping an eye out for each other.
By the time this article is published President Biden will have been inaugurated. This should be a moment of triumph, a transfer of power in the world’s richest and most powerful democracy according to the wishes of her people.
Sadly, for obvious reasons, that is not how this transition will be remembered. There are real concerns, especially in a social media age, about how a stark divide can open up within a society.
Although we have robust debates and have been through a torrid time in politics, I see little evidence of anything like the same divisions in the UK. Even on the noisiest political issues the debate is rarely about the objective, only the means to the end.
That was the conclusion of work conducted in the UK by “More in Common”, a thinktank founded in memory of my former colleague, Jo Cox. It found that the ‘them v us’ narrative on which social media thrives is a largely inaccurate representation of UK attitudes. The report found that there is an astonishing degree of agreement across the country on many issues.
I sincerely hope, especially seeing the appalling scenes in Washington last week, that we continue to recognise that there is far more that unites than divides us – something that has been clear in so many peoples’ actions over the last year.