It seems to me that in our entire history, staying at home right now is the greatest act of altruism the world has ever been offered the chance to experience. Ever. I say offered, ok not quite, but nevertheless most ‘right thinking’ people are in tacit agreement with the policy (however much it might grate with who’s delivering the message.) And surely that’s the point? Whether you swing to the left or the right, we ‘know’ that by following the rules we’re helping to keep everyone: ourselves, our friends, our family, our country, our world, safe. The countless thousands, and perhaps millions, we’ll never meet; it’s true ‘social-ism’, with a small ‘s’.

The Scandinavian and Nordic countries are rightly praised for their more inclusive and enlightened attitude towards social care and education, somehow, it’s in their DNA, it’s not just a political system. I have family in Finland and have visited several times, it regularly crops up as one of, if not the, happiest countries in which to live. As far as I can see they don’t have the highest mountains, the best food, the most stunning architecture and certainly not the best weather. But what they do possess, it seems to me, is a collective social conscience that means they are happy to know that society is as fair and as just as it can be. And therein lies the so-called ‘happiness’. The Finns are generally very quiet, polite and seemingly ‘compliant’ people; they follow the rules. But over the years I’ve come to see this in a different light. ‘Rules’ are not taken as personal affronts to freedom, something to be kicked against and resisted just for the sake of it; the child id resisting the parental superego. ‘Following the rules’ means society will benefit, keeping everyone, keeping society, safe; it’s not born out of fear or loathing of authority or political dogma. Which is at the same time altruistic and egotistic, like a shoal of fish or a flock of starlings all forming a collective mass that helps to keep the mass and the individual as safe as possible. It overrides individualistic self-importance; (why should I stick to the rules when they don’t?) As I say, it’s in their DNA, the opposite of the USA where individualism and self-preservation are hard-wired, a product of their pioneering, multi-cultural past. And where state ‘interference’, including aid and support for the ‘weak’, is resisted at all costs. I guess a lot of us here in the UK are somewhere in the middle? A healthy resistance to rules (usually the opposition’s) and a widespread, visceral and equally healthy attachment to the NHS and all it embodies.

It is somewhat ironic that the Finns are generally an anti-social and taciturn bunch; small-talk for them is an unnecessary and futile exercise. And in a country 1.5 times the size of and with 60 million fewer people than the UK there’s just about enough space to ensure they only have to interact with other people when absolutely necessary! And yet the security and wellbeing of society is so valued? Perhaps, to paraphrase Dostoyevsky/John Lennon/Marylin Monroe (depending on your Google feed) it’s a case of “I love humanity, it’s people I can’t stand.”

In the current situation party politics somehow seems irrelevant, perhaps it’s worth considering joining a new party, the Alt-ruists: no leaders, no followers, no meetings, no dogma? You might say I’m just an old hippy, (you’d be right) but to paraphrase someone else (can’t remember who) “Paradise might not exist but we might as well walk in its direction.”

(Whilst staying at home obvs!)