Authors Electric

witness chair & lawyer's desk I walk up the shallow steps into the oddly anonymous building for the last time. For the last time the doorman opens the big glass door, smiles and greets me and I smile back, embarrassed and grateful for one last time. He’s the staff. He works here along with the friendly lady who hands me my badge and the cheerful people who see me through security and volunteer to look after my extra bag until the session’s over. They are all Black whereas most of us, arriving now, are white. This makes me feel awkward as if we’re playing out some unchosen stereotype. I’m invariably grateful to them for their kindliness and reassurance, for their welcome.  Several people are arriving with suitcases. This is the last day of hearings for Module 6 (social care) of the UK-COVID 19 Inquiry and lawyers from across the UK are poised to hurry away to catch their trains or planes home. Before they go they'll be offering their closing submissions. These are summarie...

  Alan Bennett’s Killing Time is a Covid fairy tale. It’s set in Hill Topp House (with two pp’s) a council home where residents pay a premium, the cuisine is ‘not unadventurous’ and a glass of dry sherry may be served on special occasions. The worst fate is probably not death but to be sent down the hill to live in the ‘sink’ council home, Low Moor.  Mrs McBryde, the refined, light-fingered, care home manager doesn’t hesitate to use the threat of Low Moor to keep her residents in line, get rid of anyone whose name seems common (Audrey is out, Amelia in) or whose relatives became unable to pay the premium. Then the pandemic strikes and the Hill Topp table top sale must be cancelled (though Cheltenham races need not). When Mrs McBryde develops Covid symptoms and is taken to hospital, she’s so sure that the virus belongs only in places like Low Moor (and will only affect ‘old people and the occasional Asian’) that her last conversations with the doctor are spent explaining why...