In the Fraser household, the debate over the Christmas menu began a couple of months ago. With the pudding mixed and set aside back in October, so began the annual turkey discussion. It’s a dry old bird, with little to recommend it taste-wise. Shall we go off-piste, try something different? With a sense of daring, we ask the same question, year after year, but inevitably fall back on the same old traditional menu.
The children expect it, notwithstanding the fact that they push their sprouts around the plate. And I am too much a fan of Dickens not to get all misty eyed about Scrooge’s heart-warming gift to the Cratchit family. Moreover, the idea that the majority of people up and down the land are eating something like the same thing engenders a spirit of national solidarity, perfect for Christmas. I don’t even know if this is true anymore — but I like the idea that it is. So Turkey it is, and somewhere out on a chilly, former Norfolk airfield, some poor overfed bustard has his card marked.
As we contemplate this annual orgy of waist-expanding excess, my church, right next door to the rectory, is filling up with piles of tins and packets upon packets of dried pasta and breakfast cereal. As I walk the few paces from my own front door to that of the church, my world changes. Bags of groceries have been sorted for collection. People come by furtively and fill up their wheely trollies.
It is not quite the same as that recent heart-breaking BBC report from Burnley, where hungry children are ripping open the bags of food that the church brings to their door. But there is hunger here, too, and quiet desperation, and a sense of failure. Lockdown has taken its toll on people: jobs lost, relationships strained, too many funerals attended. No, we won’t all be eating the same thing. Of course I feel guilt at the contrast. Most of us should.
“You voted Tory, it’s all on you” comes the Twitter response, “Save us your crocodile tears.” This, however, I do not feel so conflicted about. Even before I abandoned the Labour Party, vowing never to return, I was scornful of those who subcontract their social responsibility to the ballot box, returning back from a five-minute trip to the polling station to comfortable untroubled lives with the added glow of inner virtue, their work now done.
Even many of those who live their politics 24/7 often seem to believe that right-think absolves them from all the practical activity of caring for those less fortunate than ourselves. Many despise charity or the practical activity of social benevolence, believing it shouldn’t be necessary (being the proper role of the state) and that it reinforces unequal social relations. The Cratchets need a government with the appropriate economic policies; they should have no need of a converted Scrooge.
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