Yesterday afternoon someone from the council phoned to check on Mum. He spent quite some time listening to my worries. I found this demonstration of support really moving and shed a tear or two after ringing off.

They call to check on her during heatwaves as well because we use the council’s aide à domicile service for people of reduced mobility. It’s great to know that such social solidarity exists.

Giorgio Agamben has caused a stir in left-wing social media circles with a piece claiming that the “frenzied, irrational and totally unjustified” emergency measures are a plot to normalise a “state of exception”.

The hypothesis that the international bourgeoisie is deliberately tanking the economy so as to strengthen the surveillance state seems dubious to me. Isn’t the state there to serve the economy, so far as they’re concerned?

Agamben thinks that this crisis will leave people ready to accept permanent extreme restrictions on their liberty.

I think that many incumbent governments, especially the most reactionary ones, will come out of this discredited, as will the doctrine that has led to the smothering of the welfare state.

While some will see this as a justification to huddle behind reinforced borders, I believe the value of community and solidarity will be reinforced for most people. We might even be ready to pay our taxes to pay for it.

Because don’t we all miss our communities? It’s a much-abused word – the “intelligence community” is a euphemism for spies, isn’t it? Be honest, you spooks – but the communities we form in our normal daily lives keep us fed, watered and sane, and lockdown has cut us off from them.

I don’t want to get all blitz spirit but I believe that facing a crisis that affects us all will reaffirm the value of solidarity and the social services that governments have been slashing over the last few decades.

The magic money tree was shaken in a crisis. Resources we were assured didn’t exist were found and today most people are aware that huge wealth has been accumulated and syphoned off into private hands. When it comes to paying the bill, repairing worn-out health and social services and reviving the economy, there is likely to be fury if the rich don’t foot the bulk of the bill.

Apart from that, the trip to the bakery went well. I wasn’t stopped by a cop, just as well since I forgot to take the form with me. Some but not many people on the street. The young woman serving was singing through her mask. I paid in one of those machines that takes your money and gives you your change. That’s not a Coronavirus innovation but it comes in handy now.
I also dared to sit out in our courtyard in the spring sunshine. I think I’m allowed to do that, as long as we observe social distancing. Nobody else was around so the question didn’t arise.