Basically people like me are expendable, because we have chronic illness. She caveats it later with ‘well they can all shield’, but you’re talking tens of millions who have an elevated risk, aside from the fact that you are showing what you really think - we are a burden... /1

...in the way of the ‘healthy’, whose ‘freedom’ is to be prized above all.

Of course, she isn’t interested in Long COVID, or my friends with no pre-existing conditions of note, all under 60, who are struggling to recover over a span of months.

/2

Fact she is citing Paul Embery should come as no surprise.

In the 19th century, anarchism fought Malthusianism and social Darwinism. Proudhon v Malthus. Kropotkin v Spencer.

It is a sad truth that eugenics remains central to Britain’s contemporary political culture.

/3

Tens of thousands who needn’t have died have died because of these views, because of the half-arsed nature of government response which they informed, which has put short-termist interests of capital ahead of life at all points until it became politically unviable to do so.

/4

The fact is of course these calls are never accompanied by a detailed logistical plan of how people would be shielded, never accompanied by a detailed analysis of how Long COVID will be treated, or indeed how new strains will be addressed.

Because they don’t care.

/5

As a good tutor taught me, never mistake a rationalisation of a position for a valid argument.

Judge on what people do.

And saying ‘yes that’s sad’ to the deaths of people’s parents and children, partners and siblings is inhuman.

Judge them by what they do.

/7