Let’s leave aside for one moment Nicola Sturgeon’s claim of ingenuous innocence in the matter of her husband Peter Murrell’s splurging sprees – because apparently this savvy, forensically-minded stickler of a woman, the foremost politician of our age, is a ditzy scatterbrain on this one issue alone. There is a particular item on the long shopping list sticks out.
This, for once, was not a luxury item, something that could be hidden from timorous wee Nicola’s view in the secret chamber of that Bluebeard’s Palace in the Glaswegian suburb of Uddingston.
Court records revealed that on 7 March 2020, shortly before the first Covid lockdown, Mr Murrell bought 108 ‘luxury’ Andrex toilet rolls at a cost of £55.98. What makes this purchase particularly striking is that less than 48 hours later, Sturgeon – in the course of one of her daily emergency press briefings on the pandemic – told the Scottish public to ‘apply common sense’ and not to panic buy such items, as shortages were already becoming noticeable.
To further domestic mockery, I have invested in what I call the ‘Miliband Preparedness Kit’, just in case
Now, Sturgeon has claimed that she never saw the luxury motorhome purchased by her husband, or to have hardly spent any time in their kitchen, enabling her to overlook his acquisition of Lalique pepper grinders and high-end coffee machines. But a stack of 54 double packs of Andrex acquired by her Master Of The Rolls must surely have been a harder thing for the eye to pass over. Fairly regular visits to the smallest room of the house are, one would assume, unavoidable even for somebody with Ms Sturgeon’s superhuman qualities. Maybe what she was really saying to the Scottish people was ‘nae fash yourselves going after the bog roll, ma hubby’s already cleared them oot’?
I do have some sympathy for Mr Murrell in these circumstances. A politician saying ‘don’t panic’ always sends alarm bells ringing. Any suggestion from Ms Sturgeon in particular would send me scurrying to Sainsbury’s with a wheelbarrow.
Also, I can point to the domestic splits these circumstances can provoke. My own domestic partner scoffed at my emergency shopping in February 2020 – a stack of tins, packets, bottled water and yes, I admit it, toilet rolls. ‘It’s a respiratory virus, what difference will towers of toilet paper make?’ I was told, reasonably. But this, I pointed out, overlooks the domino effect of panic buying; if one person nabs lots of Andrex, however irrationally, so will others, until very shortly there will be empty shelves.
Another consideration is that it’s increasingly difficult to evaluate which possibilities are worth fretting about (or being prepared for, if you prefer) and which are not. In our affluent world of sensitive supply chains and magically restocked supermarket shelves, it is hard to keep in mind the precariousness – the extremely historically unusual condition – of being unconcerned with the furnishing of basic provisions for continued human life. Start down the path of worrying about it and it’s hard to stop. There could, after all, be unknown unknowns lurking all over the place.
The public advocacy, for example, of energy market expert Kathryn Porter of Watt-Logic – who has predicted, in a measured and confident tone, that Ed Miliband’s barmy Net Zero zealotry could well result in power rationing, rolling blackouts and potentially even major, long-lasting outages – has inspired me to drastic steps. To further domestic mockery, I have invested in what I call the ‘Miliband Preparedness Kit’ (MPK), just in case.
The MPK consists of the following items: candles and matches, a 20000 mAh power bank, a wind-up hand crank/solar-powered radio for picking up emergency broadcasts – these will probably be delivered in the reassuring voice of Rachel Reeves. I have also invested in 200 water purification tablets and a well-stocked First Aid kit. A full MPK will only set you back about £100, and I consider it money well spent, just in case.
An MPK, like the Murrell Andrex stash, is for the kind of civilisational calamity you can sit out. There is also the other variety, the more serious type, where you might as well say goodbye and prepare very swiftly to meet your maker. The conditions for a doomsday scenario, after all, only have to happen once.
As we can all see now, without fear of being accused of Chicken Licken-ism, Britain is slipping down rapidly from its first-world status; thirty years of progressive government will do that. We are now governed, remember, by people who thought Boris Johnson – who waved millions of people into the country and printed money like a Balkan kleptocrat in 1937 – was a dangerous right-winger.
As we creep nearer to the closing stages of what we can only fervently desire to be the final Labour government, things can only get worse. Labour might well go out, and down, with some kind of a bang – in which case, we will need all the toilet paper we can get our hands on.
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