During the coronavirus lockdown, a number of things that had dominated official policies in education, welfare and health in Britain receded from importance. In fact, they began to look downright silly. Officialdom - Government departments and education and health authorities and so on – had, in the preceding months, been busy seeking to ban the use of words like “mother” and “father”, and there were campaigns to block speakers at universities who were deemed to have incorrect ideas about the differences between men and women. “Transgenderism” became an ideology to be imposed, and saying this was daft could bring bleak consequences for a teacher, local councillor, Justice of the Peace, university lecturer, author or broadcaster.

 

Now, with the challenge of trying to rebuild community and economic life in the wake of the problems brought by the virus, we might hope that this sort of daft rubbish has drifted out of our lives. But we should not assume things will be as simple as that.