Found this sketch in my files from last year, taking the piss of Toby Young when he described Johnson thus: '(with his) broad, Germanic forehead, there was also something of Nietzsche’s Übermensch about him.' And of having a 'will to power'

How far he has now maneuvered... (1)

It was a very revealing article. Men like Toby don’t serve “the economy,” whatever that means. They serve power. This is true for so many of the more ardent 'lockdown skeptics' or whatever vanguard moniker they want to use (2)

On one hand these people have a sudden concern for livelihoods, mental health and prospects for the young. But on the other think they see the elderly and the sick as acceptable casualties. This is not about human flourishing. It is something far uglier (3)

What they cannot of course admit is that to rescue the economy from this pandemic, we need more social democracy. Redistribution of power and resources. However, the expansion of the welfare state & workers rights has always been anathema to conservatives like Toby. (4)

This is the same obsession with 'will to power' that Young wrote about Johnson last year, only manifested in a different way. The pandemic provides them with opportunity to re-affirm who they view to be productive. (5)

The proponents (like Young) of the 'Great Barrington Declaration' talk about 'isolating the vulnerable' and letting 'everyone else get on with it'. There is no concern here for those left behind- only a dark desire for the 'vulnerable' to be out of sight, and out of mind (6)

Elderly? Disabled? Detained in a prison or immigration center? Then to these people, you need too much. A distraction from the task of 'getting on with it'. Getting on with what? The maintenance of a social hierarchy based on power- no matter what. Even a deadly pandemic. (7)

Men like Toby are always hoping to conceal a deep sense of insecurity. (he brown-nosed his way into Brasenose). The obsession with power, force, the ability to 'play the game'. Because he knows he had to cheat to even be considered at the table (8)

What we see right now with hardline lockdown skeptics and their fellow travelers is not intellectual tension, or concern for ethics & human rights. Covid-19 has offered them a chance to clearly display how they think. The rest of us must remember it, long after the pandemic (9)