Wisbech Community Forum

My dire predictions about Covid-19 and its effect on Wisbech seem, touch wood, to have been overly pessimistic. As far as I can tell (from my limited view of the Harecroft Road playing fields as seen from my isolation unit window) the virus does not seem to have made its presence felt. I sincerely hope that, on this occasion at least, Wisbech's penchant for being at least ten years behind the rest of the UK is working in its favour.

The daily routine here is safe, predictable and undemanding. Eat, rest, play music, stroll in the garden, read books, order extravagant stuff over the internet - the days all pass by seamlessly, with one indistinguishable from the other. Further afield, though, we are clearly on the brink of becoming a very changed country. Just how the world we live in will look if and when we emerge from the bomb shelters is anyone's guess. Pubs, shops, restaurants, specialist suppliers - those that haven't been able to adapt to the lockdown - will all struggle to survive. The potential numbers of unemployed are simply horrific, and it looks as if the government are very soon going to have to make a 'rock-and-a-hard-place' decision about restoring some kind of normal life by actually putting lives at risk.

There cannot be anyone with an IQ above room temperature who doesn't recognise that China - or more specifically the Chinese Communist Party government - bears a grievous responsibility for the current crisis. Let's be charitable and take the view that this virus escaped from Wuhan province accidentally. There can be no charity, however, when we consider the fact that the government quickly realised that there was a problem, sealed off Wuhan from the rest of China, but kept the doors open between the province and the rest of the world, while keeping very quiet about what was happening.

Not that we have any reason to believe a word of what China says, but it seems that they have ruthlessly managed to heal themselves, while the rest of the world suffers. China - and I mean its dictatorship as opposed to inoffensive ordinary people - have for years had an ever-tightening grip on the West. You, me, the people next door, businesses, retailers - everyone - have engineered our own fate. We have made China obscenely rich by opting to buy cheaply made poor quality consumer goods. We have closed our own factories, abandoned any pretense at investing in our own industries - and bought Chinese.

And what does China do with this massive income? In a supreme act of irony, it doubles down on our weakness by buying us out - with what was once our own money. There is no aspect of our society - commercial, cultural, industrial and educational - that China has not bought its way into. If you think that this is a conspiracy too far, look no further than Wisbech itself. Get your petrol from the BP garage? China has a huge stake in that. Bank at Barclays? China has a £3bn investment. Like a bowl of Weetabix for breakfast? Thank its Chinese owners.

No-one has been immune to the lure of Chinese cash. In a poorly timed (given subsequent events) announcement, Wisbech Grammar School proudly boasted that it now enjoyed substantial investment from Chinese backers, and that this heralded a new golden dawn for the school. With parents having to pay fees for currently non-existent education, how will this pan out, I wonder? Two of my sons went to the school, and I have much affection for the place, but I can't help thinking that they may well live to rue the day that they took the thirty pieces of Chinese silver.