The Month That Was......April 2020

April 2020 will be one of those months that will be a staple on the history syllabus for many generations to come and it will no doubt fascinate scholars due to its unprecedented nature.  

But to live during it is far from fascinating…..it’s simply horrific. We all have our own awful stories. We all know far too many people with worse tales to tell. The severity to human life makes it surreal.

Living through it ‘day to day’ requires mechanisms that allow a little break from the news and the realities. Everybody has their own little things to cling on to…..mine is running like a middle aged man in poorly fitting clothes and allowing my mind to wander.

Exhibit A your honour……

On my run this morning, I afforded myself a little escapism……

§  I stepped off the foot path to hide in bushes from oncoming walkers and considered this no longer ‘creepy’ to do so.

§  Cursed at no longer getting disturbed by PPI calls and considered if they could restart the cold-calling by FaceTime / Zoom / SKYPE.

§  Thought about putting on a shirt and tie to work from home for no other reason than I miss a stiff M&S collar taking layers of skin off my neck (it’s not just irritating……it’s M&S irritating).

§  Wondered what ever happened to Nigel Farage and why was he not on every news channel blaming the EU for coronavirus?

§  Debated penning an email to Jamie Oliver to enquire whatever happened to ‘Turkey Twizzlers’. Well? What did happen?

But when my bones and chaffing are screaming at me to forget running for another day, I simply turn to my comfort food for the soul……numbers and statistics, with a side order of true life comedy (The Trump). I suspect that it will not be to everyone’s palate……but it never fails to satisfy my taste buds and fill by belly. It gets me through the latest news broadcasts. It gets me through the day. 

Aside from the catastrophic human impact, here is how I got a little light relief in April 2020……

The Numbers

It feels like every news story is surrounded by numbers and intertwining statistics. It’s as though a news story is pointless without numbers attached to it. For me, it’s the perfect scenario to feed my strange addiction to all things numerical. Hopefully the following will provide a snapshot of the variety, array and depth of numbers we are being hit with.

The Debt Management Office (the arm of the Treasury that borrows on international money markets on behalf of the Government) announced how much the UK Government is actually planning to borrow to fund the coronavirus economic stimulus package. £45 billion in April alone and a further £180 billion from the start of May to the end of July. A colossal £225 billion in just four months……and that is just the start.

The EU confirmed that €540 billion of financial support would be released to ease the economic pain caused by coronavirus and would eventually rise to €1 trillion.

The UK's inflation rate fell to 1.5%, largely driven by falls in the price of clothing (remember shopping for those things!) and fuel (yes, cars do need fuelling! apparently).

1.4 million people have made a new claim for universal credit during April. I suspect that 1.4 million people took their levels of frustration before their head explodes to a new personal best.

The FTSE 250 enjoyed its best week in its 36 year history.

Sir Keir Starmer won 56.2% of the votes in the Labour Leadership contest. Not that anyone really seemed that bothered or took notice.

373,000 property sales worth £82 billion are currently 'on hold' amid the lockdown. A staggering amount given the knock on impact to so many sectors linked to property sales……HMRC stamp duty, lenders, mortgage brokers, solicitor surveyors, home improvements, et al. Staggering.

Government data showed that air quality improved significantly in cities across the UK. In the centres of Glasgow, Middlesbrough and Oxford the levels of NO2 are less than 50% of what they were this time last year. In Manchester and Liverpool they were down 40%. One of the few good stories to cling on to.

The Queen gave only her fifth special address to the nation, which was watched by 24 million people.  

Petrol prices neared £1 a litre……how very ‘old school’.

MPs have been given an extra £10,000 each to support them while they work from home, which can be used to buy equipment such as laptops and printers for MPs and their staff or to cover additional electricity, heating and phone bills (this is in addition to the current spending budget of £26,000 a year per MP). The credit limit on MPs’ payment cards has been increased to allow spending up to £5,000 in a single transaction. Which all begs the question……you’re kidding right?

What exactly do MPs need additional money for that every other member of the public working from home does not? No further questions your honour.

China’s economy shrank by 6.8%, the first contraction since at least 1992 when official GDP records started. Whether we trust the figures or not is for another day! The US economy dropped 4.8%.

Whether you like it or not, oil is still the most important commodity in the world. Despite oil producers agreeing to cut production by 20% (10 million barrels a day from May) to combat a fall in demand, Brent Crude (the global benchmark) fell to only $16 a barrel, the lowest since 1999. This time last year it was over $70.

In the US, a record 6.6 million new people filed for unemployment benefits in a week. For context, the previous record of 695,000 for a week was set in 1982. The total for April was over 26 million new people filling for unemployment benefit. The largest economy in the world is clearly not immune from the economic impact despite The Trumps claims otherwise.  

US shares had their biggest weekly gain in 46 years.

4.5 billion people in the world are currently living under containment to slow the pandemic. This is around 60% of the world population.

In a bid to address the reducing balance of a decade of NHS austerity cuts, a certain 99 year old walked 100 laps of a 25 metre garden and raised over £28 million in the process. His idea seemed as plausible as anything else Westminster has thought of in recent years. I tip my hat to you Captain Tom Moore.

The Comedy (The Trump)

I tried, I really did. I looked long and hard for an alternative to The Trump to provide my light hearted needs as I didn’t want to be seen to be singling anybody out. It is true that the stupid live amongst us……in fact many hold positions of great power and would be ideal alternatives.

Take Scotland’s Chief Medical Officer (Dr Catherine Calderwood). Police issued a warning to her for not sticking to the guidelines that she issued Scotland during the coronavirus lockdown (she visited her second home in Fife).

Or there is the New Zealand Health Minister (David Clark) who called himself an “idiot” after breaking the country's lockdown rules (which he devised) by driving his family to the beach.

Then there is Mike Pence, The Trump’s number two at the White House. He ignored the US Government's own coronavirus prevention advice in that people should wear face coverings "in public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain". Clearly visiting a hospital throbbing with vulnerable people doesn’t meet that criteria. Another idiot.

As I said, I tried…..I really did. But the problem is, there is simply nobody that comes close to The Trump for consistent, high quality and frequent lunacy and idiocy. He is the gift that keeps on giving. April 2020 was no different……there are some absolute crackers.

There was The Trumps claim he wanted to consider using disinfectant on humans as it was good at killing germs. It’s worth a few minutes of your time……

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKCe8Pq_RUA

Clearly the most powerful man in the world hadn’t fully considered the power he enjoys, the amount of trust people have in his word or the depth of stupidity his followers / supporters have given the amount of public warnings that had to be issued on the back of the disinfectant claim!

The Trump later retracted his comments by saying he was being “sarcastic”. I am not convinced that The Trump owns the intellect to be sarcastic but you can decide for yourself……

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bX8kEHTbug

And there was another prime example of social distancing at its worst in the Oval Office……not too many happy people having to stand shoulder to shoulder on the back of The Trump’s month long message on ‘social distancing’! 

Yet again The Trump spent way too much time defending his handling of the coronavirus outbreak. And to deflect attention, there was the halt to funding of the World Health Organization (WHO) because it had "failed in its basic duty" in its response to the coronavirus outbreak. The US is the WHO’s largest single funder and gave it more than $400m in 2019 (around 15% of its budget).

And if deflecting doesn’t work, just lie and lie big. On the back of some amazing false claims in March, he continued at pace during April 2020.

According to the Washington Post, there have been 18,000 false or misleading claims since The Trump came to office. That’s an average of more than 15 a day. By anyone’s measure, that’s lying big……dare I say it’s borderline impressive.

Trump’s top three most repeated claims have remained the same throughout his 3 years.

1.   291 times he has claimed that the US economy today is the best in history (it’s not).

2.  257 times he has stated that the border wall with Mexico is being built (it isn’t – he can’t get funding approved).

3.  197 times he has bragged he passed the biggest tax cut in US history (he didn’t Ronald Reagan did in 1981).

April has seen some further excellent claims from The Trump:

-        "Ultimately, we're doing more testing, I think, than probably any of the Governors even want." To date, no Governor has complained about too much testing!

-        "If we didn't close our country to China and ban them, we would have been so infected like nobody's ever seen." Firstly, no ‘ban’ was ever made. Secondly, the travel restrictions contained exemptions for US citizens who had visited China. Hardly a closed shop.

-        “The US never took 10 cents from China before I took office”. Not only are Americans bearing most of the cost of The Trump's tariffs but the US had had tariffs on China for more than two centuries (generating an average of $12 billion a year). Slightly more than 10 cents I think.

-        “The President of the United States calls the shots - the Governors can’t do anything without the approval of the President of the United States.” False! He does not have the authority to change any State or Governor lockdown rules or have total authority in general.

I promise, I did try. But The Trump sets the standards for others to follow.  

And Finally……

It is not our abilities that show who we truly are. It is our choices.