Globalisation, it's great isn't it?

In the summer of 1964, at the age of ten, I skipped school and flew as an unaccompanied minor to Greece to visit my Aunt who lived in Kipseli, a district in the north of Athens.  It wasn't the first time I had been abroad.  The previous year the family Green had driven down to Athens in a half timbered mini traveller.  We caused quite a stir as we travelled through villages where they had rarely seen foreigners, let alone any that looked like us, and kids would wave enthusiastically at us as we drove by.
 

Anyway I am sure that nowadays an unaccompanied minor on a flight from Heathrow to Athens would scarcely be noticed.  In 1964 I was treated like a minor celebrity.  The air hostesses (they weren't flight attendants then) made a right fuss of me.  I got a meal from first class, a visit to the flight deck and a chat with the captain and a sick bag (unused) full of exotic fruit to take with me when we landed.  I do remember that it contained a peach which was hard and still slightly green, a complete contrast to the Greek peaches which I was about to experience.

Why am I telling you this?  Other than indulging in a bit of pleasant nostalgia I wanted to demonstrate how much the world has shrunk in the last fifty years or so. A trip to Heathrow to stand on the roof gardens of the Queen's Building watch the planes taking off was an exotic day out. Now Heathrow is mainly somewhere you get stuck when your flight is delayed. Air travel was rare.  I am pretty sure that I was the only person in my primary school to have travelled by air, though Micky Simmonds might have flown too because his dad was Greek and he may have been to visit family.

In March last year there were approximately 176,000 flights per day around the world. That works out at over 64 million in a year. The planet is shrinking daily. Which has several consequences.

We now know what goji berries are and they are available to buy should you so desire. Me, I'm not fussed. But I do like the fact that we can have seasonal produce all year round.  Many poorer countries rely almost exclusively on tourism to support their economy.  Long haul flights are now commonplace, and people enjoy a week or two of exotic adventure to help them escape the mundanity of their daily lives.

But ranged against these are the disadvantages.  Clearly the damage caused by the emissions of this plethora of flights is significant.  It would seem that aircraft are serious polluters, although we must not forget motor vehicles when we are looking for culprits, nor any other activity which uses fossil fuels.

Something however which few had considered at least until we were forced to, was the spread of disease. As a complete non-expert I have been shocked by the speed at which Covid-19 has travelled to almost every corner of the globe. In this country we had the chance to lock down right at the beginning.  We are a small group of islands.  Stopping flights and ferry crossings is simple, but this government is driven by economics, not public health.  Even the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care is an economist, with no experience in the area for which he is responsible, other than as a user. Even now they are talking about lifting the lockdown to help the economy.  Sure more people may die, but they've already let countless avoidable deaths occur, so what is a few more? Dead people are not statistics.  They are almost without exception somebody's child or parent or relative or friend. They may be saints, they may be utter arseholes, but they don't deserve to be sacrificed on the altar of economic necessity. There is an argument that if the economy collapses then more will die than would dive from Covid-19.  In that case it is the responsibility of the government to make sure it does not happen. It is no use relying on the market to sort this out.  If the economy shows signs of collapse they must shore it up, not wring their hands and mutter 'what a shame'.  And one way to do this is a Universal Basic Income.

When the banks came close to collapse the government shored them up by creating money to help them through the worst of it.  Has they instead given that money to the general population to spend, imagine the stimulation it would have given to the economy as whole.  Austerity might never have happened, food banks might be virtually unknown.

But they won't do his.  And why?  Because they are afraid somebody might get something they don't need, something, as they see it, for nothing. Just there are benefit scroungers and so they make it impossible to live on benefits, some of those in receipt of UBI might not need extra income, so they won't give it to anybody. But then what should we expect from a government who are said to be considering reopening schools despite the possibility of the death of a 'small' number of pupils?