Douglas Murray
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The point is that Mr Perry’s antics may have been uncouth, unwise even, but they were not that unusual. This is roughly how England fans are expected to behave. What was surprising was the near universal opprobrium. While the crowds in Leicester Square mightily enjoyed the display, the reaction elsewhere was entirely disapproving. Across the media the condemnations were unanimous. Doesn’t he know how dangerous that is? What message does it give out about our nation? That sort of thing.
And Perry is not the only person to have attracted such opprobrium. Many of the clubbers and party-goers who have tried to get their lives back this week have received a similar ticking off. An unmistakable sniffiness is in the air, with generally well-off older people whose own lives are relatively sorted tut-tutting away at younger people wanting to go out and enjoy themselves. How irresponsible, how selfish, appears to be the general reaction. Why can’t they stay at home for another two years?
It is not just the puritanism but the lack of empathy that alarms me. Many of these young clubbers are people who have spent the past 18 months almost completely on their own. They have studied alone, paid tuition fees to do online courses alone, graduated alone and are now heading into unemployment alone. All for a virus that will affect almost none of them. And it seems to me that in such a situation a certain amount of tolerance and understanding should be extended towards them by older people.
Last year, near the start of this pandemic, when everyone was talking about how it might change us, some optimistic types said it might bring us together. Michel Houellebecq is not an optimistic type. In fact he is the pessimist’s pessimist. But it seems to me that the French novelist’s reaction was among the more accurate. Asked what society might look like after the virus, he said he thought it was likely to be the same, but worse.
So far everything is bearing out his analysis. Legislation that was supposed to be temporary has rolled on and on. Restrictions meant to be limited look as if they are going to be with us for the duration. People who like government interference in their lives might be happy. People fond of mass surveillance and monitoring might be happy. People keen on a future in which government and private-sector busybodies use the virus as the ultimate excuse not to do anything they don’t want to do will be happy. And that’s before we get on to the debt, inflation and the growing inability to accrue capital that is again going to disproportionately affect the young. So if these Twenties can roar, then excellent. Good luck to them. But I don’t fancy their chances.
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