I have lost count of the people I’ve heard say there must be no return to business as usual after the coronavirus crisis. Between them, Polly Toynbee (I’ve lived through plenty of social shocks – this time we must learn the lessons, 30 March) and Peter C Baker (‘We can’t go back to normal’: how will coronavirus change the world?, 31 March) review the gamut of optimistic and pessimistic scenarios for change. Baker concludes: “What happens next might depend on the optimists’ ability to transport such moments of solidarity into the broader political sphere.” Quite!
Yet concrete suggestions as to how this should be done are thin on the ground. Mike Davis looks forward to the day when street protests resume and promises to carry a placard supporting nurses. Naomi Klein fears the biggest risk will be to fritter away these days of idleness sitting at home on our social media feeds. Yet Prof Adam Gearey (Letters, 30 March) sensibly points out that quarantining actually gives us the space to imagine a fairer, greener and more decent world.
Uniquely practical among these voices is Rosamund Aubrey’s recent call for online citizens’ assemblies to push the policy agenda forward (Letters, 24 March). Doubtless she was hoping for a surge of seasoned campaigners to volunteer – but none has appeared.
Who, with the requisite organisational and technical competence, will now come forward and begin this urgent process of generating the necessary groundswell of support for new policy directions?
Dr Anthony Carew
Honorary visiting reader in international labour studies, Alliance Manchester Business School
• Polly Toynbee asks: will this pandemic lead to change? When we come out of this, there will be a considerable number of young, highly motivated people who will be unemployed, but who want to be useful. We need to create a National Care Service, similar to the NHS, and fund it properly. It must be a nationally funded, locally autonomous organisation which will deliver care to those who need it. A National Care Service would provide a range of respected, well-paid and rewarding jobs. The present crisis reminds us how valuable an asset the NHS is. A National Care Service is a new start which could point the way forward for a fairer society.
Norman McCandlish
Aberfeldy, Perthshire
• Polly Toynbee is right to be sceptical about this pandemic leading to change. During the second world war, when women were needed on farms and in munitions factories, universal free childcare was seen as a necessity and duly provided. This provision didn’t last long beyond the war, as the labour market returned to the status quo. Despite many campaigns, we still do not have universal childcare. Beyond this pandemic, darker forces may well prevail over equality and egalitarianism.
Jill Mannion-Brunt
Chesterfield, Derbyshire
• The caption on your photo illustrating Polly Toynbee’s article said: “The Thames near Tower Bridge in heavy smog, December 1952”. More accurately it could have said: “A relatively clear day, December 1952”. The 1952 smog in December was so bad you could sometimes not see more than about three paces. I remember as a 10-year-old boy being in Oxford Street with my parents and seeing some people keeping their hands on the shop fronts as they walked. I suppose you could hardly show a picture of that kind of smog. But what you showed was not heavy!
Graham Mytton
Coldharbour, Surrey
