Let's (not) play the Blame Game!

With hindsight, I should have organised a sweep-stake nine weeks ago.

It was inevitable that this would happen. The sense of togetherness and unity that characterised the early weeks of this pandemic was never going to last: they wouldn't have allowed it. It's not in their interests. The only question was...who was it going to be?

Sorry, I'll try to be more clear. The sweep-stake that I should have set up nine weeks ago was - specifically - this:

"Who will the Daily Mail try to scapegoat first??"

But I'm too late! We know the answer now. And a depressingly predictable one too.

Teachers! Of course!

Feckless, lazy, obstinate, work-shy, union-loving bastards the lot of them!

Actually, on this occasion, I think the beloved DM might have misjudged the mood. Criticism for the government's plans to re-open schools on June 1st have come from a range of sources: parents; the British Medical Association; the devolved governments. There is a lot of genuine sympathy towards a group of people who are concerned about returning to a potentially unsafe working environment in which an infection that could kill them or the people they come into contact with is still rampant. Shocking, I know!

Still, even if they have got it wrong, nothing would have stopped the Daily Mail from adopting its strategy of choice: Who can we blame?! Which group can we demonise in order to distract our readers from the real problem?!

We've had some gorgeous weather lately. Because of this, and because we're British, lots of men have started taking their shirts off. I was looking at a shirtless guy just the other day (in a totally non-pervy way obvs - although he was pretty ripped...) and noticed a tatto across his back: 'Only God can judge me'.

Now my instinctive concern whenever I see someone displaying this is that they use it as an excuse for being a tosser, but aside from that, I couldn't agree more. Only God can judge me. Only God can judge you.

Why?

Because no-one else can do it right. And it's a tragedy that we even try. One of the traps we fall into is to judge by category. We have no way of knowing all of the millions of different factors that determine a person's character and behaviour, so we look at a group they belong to and judge them according to that.

"Blame the teachers!"

"Blame the Tories!"

"Blame the football fans!"

"Blame the social workers!"

"Blame the Muslims!"

"Blame the Jews!"

It's dangerous and wrong and we shouldn't do it. I'm guilty of doing it too and I want to try and stop. In that spirit, I'm going to say this:

Our next-door-but-one neighbours are an elderly couple. He loves a can of Fosters, enjoys sitting in the garden and I like talking to him about football. She looks after our cat every time we go away, with no expectation of thanks or reward. She puts pages of colouring activities through our letter-box which she thinks my son would enjoy doing. At Halloween, they invite us to go and see their pumpkins. At Christmas, we go and see their decorations.

And they read the Daily Mail.

I don't know why and I'd rather they didn't. But I do know that there is far, far more to both of them than their choice of paper. They are, in so many ways, kind, decent, good people. So I'm not going to judge them. Because that would be wrong.

And hopefully, when they read the last few front pages of their favourite newspaper, they won't judge me either.