Very well, you are right. No more cheeky comments from me. Yes, we should observe eight days of mourning.
DAY 1 Mourn for the ones who, in Mr Johnson’s words, have lost loved ones ‘sooner than we might have wished’ to COVID-19.
DAY 2 Mourn for the ones who have died – old and young, many key workers, many more forced to continue unessential work due to lack of funds, the NHS workers, predominantly racialised ones, who died of COVID-19.
DAY 3 Mourn for those who died the horrible death of being homeless and sick.
DAY 4 Mourn for those who died the horrible death of being poor and lacking social care.
DAY 5 Mourn for those who died on The Journey, seeking asylum. Explain to those who say it’s mostly young men who wash up here, so they must be economic migrants, tell them that that’s because the women and the children, the old and the sick don’t make it.
DAY 6 So mourn for the old and the sick who died on The Journey, and those who stayed home and died amidst destruction.
DAY 7 Mourn for the women and the children stolen away from camps like Calais by traffickers.
DAY 8 Mourn for those who die of bombs and pollution and climate change in all the places that will continue to be destroyed until we learn how to control our aristocrats and our billionaires, and *especially* the billionaire aristocrats, who bomb and starve and squeeze the whole world.
And yes, okay, give a thought to rich and well-cared for old men who die in their beds, in their castles, aged 99.
