Coronavirus. Where did it come from and how did it travel to the four corners of the earth in such a short period of time? Is it just another form of flu – if not, how does it differ? And why are governments talking about introducing drastic measures to counter it?

WHAT SHOULD we make of the Coronavirus? Where did it spring from – and by what means – and how did it travel to the four corners of the earth in such a short period of time?

These are just some of the questions that people are asking since the outbreak began in China and then spread rapidly into Europe, North America and the Middle East.

It’s generally accepted that the Cronoavirus (Covid-19) originated in late September in the Huanan Seafood Wholesales Market in city of Wuhan. Wuham is the capital of Hubei province in Central China. Huanan Seafood Wholesales Market is also sometimes described as a ‘wet market’ – and it’s where live animals such as bats, snakes, rabbit and birds are said to be illegally sold

To give an idea of scale, the population of Wuhan’s metropolitan area is 19 million whilst the population of Hubei province – in 2015 – was 58,500,000. Wuhan serves as a major transport hub and the political, cultural, and economic hub of Central China – which could explain why the virus travelled so fast within China – and Hubei is known as the ‘Land of Fish and Rice’.

It also seems to be clear that Northern Italy was the first area in Europe to be hit. And it was hit hard. Many people – including ourselves at Harrow Voice – are mystified as to why this should be. Does anyone have any thoughts regarding this?

The rapidly moving situation (relating to Covid-19) makes it next to impossible to accurately predict how many people locally, nationally and internationally will contract it, or, sadly, die from it.

The main thing to remember at the moment is that – unfortunately – the UK figure is liable to rise as the government believes that coronavirus will spike in around two weeks time. Hopefully, the figures will go down after that, but there’s still no indication of when things will go back to relative normality.

Despite this – and along with many other people – Harrow Voice (HV) has an odd feeling about what’s going on. We fully admit that we can’t quite put our finger on it, but we’re wondering why various governments are going to such extraordinary (and unprecedented) lengths to tackle this virus.

This Live Science site https://www.livescience.com/56598-deadliest-viruses-on-earth.html

provides some context and we certainly recall the SARS and Avian flu scares from yesteryear. We’re also aware that ‘ordinary’ flu kills thousands of people each year. However, a health scare has never been used to effectively crack down on the civil and religious liberties of our people – so much so that it’s been suggested that we’re sleepwalking into authoritarianism.

So what makes Covid-19 so different and does the government know something that we don’t? And what’ll happen once this is all over?

To be fair, no one outside of a select few could probably answer the first question. However, HV would like to give some pointers in an attempt to answer the second. And we hope to expand on these ideas in future debates.

First of all, we think that the slogan Small Is Beautiful! makes even more sense now than it ever did. No matter how coronavirus originated we get the feeling that one vital aspect of globalism – the entirely free movement of people – has helped to spread it. Therefore, more should be done to protect our territorial integrity. We feel that it’s entirely reasonable and sensible to know who’s in our country at any one time – especially if they are harbouring highly contagious viruses.

(On saying the above, and we want to make this perfectly clear, it does not excuse any personal attacks on Chinese nationals here or anywhere else. Such attacks are completely out of order – not to mention counterproductive – and it’s important to remember that the vast majority of people, Chinese or otherwise, are in no way responsible for the actions of their respective governments.)

We also feel that it would be preferable to be more autonomous and as self-sufficient as possible. This should apply across the board and includes individuals, local areas – such as our borough of Harrow – and all nations. And when we talk about self-sufficiency we’re talking in terms of food, energy, water, recycling and so on.

In particular, we need to start investing in Research and Development here and encourage a wide industrial base by making things ourselves rather than importing. That means investing in education and training and not relying on importing skilled or unskilled workers.

On a similar theme, we’re more convinced than ever that capitalism (as well as socialism) has to go. We need to go back to our economic roots in terms of small businesses, local independent businesses, sole traders, family farms, Co-Operatives and so on. These should form the backbone of the economy. Indeed, we really need to wean ourselves off of our over reliance on massive supermarkets and fast food chains. In short, we need to move away from centralisation and promote a more decentralised, organic – or rooted – way of living that’s in tune with nature.

Autonomy, decentralisation & self-sufficiency also ties in with our belief in ‘small government’ – meaning that we should be less reliant on central government.

Whilst we’re on the subject of autonomy, we believe that there’s something to the argument that London (along with many other cities – and the South East of England as a whole) is now far too large & over crowded to be sustainable.

For instance, Greater London, of which Harrow forms a part of, covers 1,572 1,572 km2 (607 square miles) and the population, as at the 2011 census was 8,174,000. Therefore, Harrow Voice has some sympathy with the belief that the capital city should be scaled back to its original inner boroughs. This would mean that outer London boroughs will return to their original historic counties. Thus Harrow will become part of Middlesex again.

As with our first debate (see the link below), we’d appreciate you comments – especially if you have any specialist knowledge relating to Covid-19 – on any of the points we’ve raised here. Just look out for this debate when it appears on our National Liberals Facebook site – https://www.facebook.com/groups/52739504313/ – or the National Liberal Party Facebook site – https://www.facebook.com/NationalLiberalParty/

• ALSO check out

Harrow Voice Debate (1) – What Do You Think Of Universal Basic Services? http://nationalliberal.org/

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REGULAR READERS will know that the National Liberal Party (NLP) intended to stand up to 25 candidates in theGreater London Assembly elections – which were scheduled for 7th May.

Here, we were going to campaign on the issue ofSelf-Determination ForAll! The election would have provided us with an excellent opportunity to hone our social media skills and build a powerful Self-Determinist electoral bloc. However, as we reported two days ago – http://nationalliberal.org/public-notice – they have now been postponed for a year due to thecorona virus outbreak.

With this in mind, the NLP has cancelled its planned donors dinner (27th) and election meeting (29th) until further notice. But this doesn’t mean that we’ll be placing less emphasis on Self-Determination. In fact, we’ll be stepping up a gear! In the same way a dog is for life and not just for Christmas, we feel that Self-Determination is for life and not just for elections!

We believe that the principle of Self-Determination can be applied largely in three areas – National, Political and Economic. Our intended Greater London Assembly (GLA) election campaign would have mainly focussed on National Self-Determination. However, we also intended to look at matters relating to Political & Economic Self-Determination as well.

The first article (in this series of three) looked at Economic Self-Determination – see For Economic Self-Determinationhttp://nationalliberal.org/for-economic-self-determination However, in this article we’ll be looking at Political Self-Determination.

The NLP definesPolitical Self-Determination as a system which ‘seeks to ensure that the collective will of the people as well as the variety of political opinion is reflected in decision making. Thus, for example, we favour greater use of Referendums to meet the former, and PR to reflect the latter (we favour a system close to the Swiss model of Direct Democracy).’

As the title of this article –A Referendum Is An Act Of Self-Determination – suggests, we would like to see representative democracy replaced by participatory democracy in the form of Referendums (as well as Preferendums). The NLP feels that direct democracy should be the only show in town.

For those who don’t know, a referendum is ‘a method of referring a question or set of questions to the entire electorate directly.’ Since 1973 the UK has held 11 referendums, the most famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view!) being the EU Referendum of 2016. (1)

We would prefer that referendums were held on a much more regular basis – as they do in Switzerland. In future articles we’ll take a more in-depth look at referendums (and look at some examples from Switzerland itself).

Referendums are usually decided on a simple ‘Yes/No’ vote. However, it could be argued that preferendums are more democratic in that they allow the electorate toselect a range of different options (generally, three or more) in order of their preference. It’s thought that the use of a preferential voting system – rather than a simple majority – also accurately allows everyone’s point of view to be taken into account.

Other elements of Political Self-Determination must include replacing the ‘First Past The Post’ (2) voting system with one of Proportional Representation. As indicated in the articleFrom The Liberty Wall – Total Democracy – We Want Total Democracy! there also needs to be a ‘None Of The Above’ (NOTA) option on the ballot paper (3) and a process of Voter Recall.

We’re also interested in the system whereby members of the public can create petitions which can be debated in parliament if they attract100,000 signatures or more (4). However, it has obvious flaws in that the Petitions Committee (which consists of around a dozen MPs) has the power to decide what and can’t be presented for debate.

Again, we’ll be looking at these issues in more depth in the near future.

So far we’ve concentrated on Political Self-Determination initiatives that are largelyNational in nature. However, we feel that many of them can also be adapted toLocal government. With this in mind, we’ve recently been advised of a system employed in Spain whereby locals have a direct say in the spending of a portion of the local budget. As this brief article (5) from The Post (a Spanish-based weekly English language paper) of early October 2019 notes:

‘Residents of San Pedro del Pinatar can have their say on the local budget until October 13, the town hall announced last week.

The council has allocated€200,000 to a participative budget scheme (presupuesto participativo), for which residents can send their proposals via the municipal website, www.sanpedrodelpinatar.es

Proposals can be made by any resident aged over 16, who is registered on the municipal register (padrón) and the cost of carting them out cannot exceed the €200,000 budget.

Council technicians will then select the most feasible proposals and these will be posted on the website so that they can be voted on between November 18 and 22.

The winning proposal will be included in the budget for 2020.’

The NLP feels that a similar system could be introduced by UK local authorities. This’ll give local communities some say over the spending of a proportion of their rates and would be an effective form of local political Self-Determination.

1. https://www.parliament.uk/get-involved/elections/referendums-held-in-the-uk/
2. We believe that the current ‘First Past The Post’ (FPTP) electoral system is not fit for purpose. Indeed, it could be argued that FPTP is anti-democratic. It’s certainly injust as it actually allows governments to be formed with only a fraction of the overall vote. For instance, the 2005 Labour government only had the support of 35% of the electorate whilst in 2015, the Tories formed a government with only 37% of the vote https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/voting-systems/types-of-voting-system/first-past-the-post/
3. http://nationalliberal.org/from-the-liberty-wall-–-total-democracy-–-we-want-total-democracy
4. https://www.parliament.uk/get-involved/sign-a-petition/
5. https://issuu.com/rotativosdelmediterraneos.l./docs/post_628