In my 72 years, I’ve known many lovely people who’ve killed themselves - and always the self-searching questions, did I do something wrong, could I have done more, was it partly my fault? Probably many family friends of people who’ve died of coronavirus will be beset by (1

doubts of, was I careful enough, did I infect them, is it partly my fault?
In both cases they are impossible questions, there will never be any proof, no-one can ever know - so beating oneself up becomes a useless exercise for all but consenting masochists. But the danger is (2

that the anger and depression stages of grief merge, the anger turns inwards compounding the depression, and a grieving person becomes inconsolably wracked by guilt.
What I found helped when grieving for my suicide friends, was having a target to blame - and for those I knew (3

best it wasn’t hard to find fault and blame:
- The family member or partner, priest or psychiatrist who abused them
- The education system which allowed unchecked bullying to erode their self-worth
- The government which used divide and rule to stigmatise and alienate them (4

And with coronavirus, I would plead with the bereaved, for your their health and mental well-being, aim their anger outwards to where the blame belongs:
- It was the Tory government which spent 10 years under-funding, dismantling, privatising the NHs so that it could hardly (5

cope with usual levels of ill health let alone a pandemic
- It was the Tory government which ignored and suppressed warnings from the Cygnus Exercise, that there was not enough PPE, that the NHS could not cope with a pandemic
- It was the Tory government which issued advice (6

leading to untested people being moved to care homes which became death traps, in order to avoid too many newspaper headlines of “Hospital Overwhelmed”
- It was the Tory government which chose to advocate a herd immunity policy justifying lack of action (a policy many think (7

still holds today)
- It was the Tory government which chose to follow its own hand-picked political appointees on the SAGE committee, rather than WHO guidance of world leading experts
- It was the Tory government which chose to ignore the example of countries around the world (8

which adopted policies seen to be working in taking control of virus spread
- It was the Tory government which chose to stop testing and tracing, just as the WHO was advising “Test, Test, Test” and “Test, trace, isolate”
- It was the Tory government which always did too little (9

too late, such as allow large gatherings in Liverpool & Cheltenham, until the virus spread was out of control
- It was the Tory government which chose to allow people from coronavirus hotspots all over the world to fly into the UK with no attempt at testing them, let alone (10

quarantine
- It was the Tory government which chose not to give testing and other health contracts to the NHS or small businesses with expertise, but to Tory-donating companies which had been convicted of corruption, incompetence and fraud multiple times, ensuring that there (11

were vast sums of money were wasted on the wrong equipment, and very little worked
- It was the Tory government which chose to relax restrictions in chaotic fashion, forcing desperately indebted & hungry people to risk infection on crowded public transport, in order to be (12

able to use those transgressors as a scapegoat
- It was the Tory government which kept massaging the statistics, ensuring that all subsequent policy decisions were made on a wish and a prayer rather than hard evidence
Don’t blame yourself, the spread of coronavirus in (13

the UK is not your fault - look at Germany, Korea, and especially New Zealand for what could have been done - blame our greedy, hypocritical, callous, government, and never vote Tory again 14) and end!

Or you can read the whole thread here
https://www.facebook.com/oliver.swingler.9/posts/10223970680034085