Your time has come your second skin
The cost so high the gain so low
Walk through the valley
The written word is a lie

One of the most enduring of the postpunk-pop-anthems was ‘Rise’, by Public Image Ltd, a band whose musical legacy – and arguably influence – dwarfs that of the Sex Pistols. Famously, he sang (on repeat), ‘Anger is an energy’; the implicit message being anger is a fuel for change in the form of radical action. This week our government’s symbolic response to a deepening, truly horrific and perhaps deliberately covered-up COVID-19 crisis in our care homes was to produce a badge. A badge. A fucking badge. The badge, presented to us in the manner of a dubious uncle at a Christening desperate to make amends for past misdemeanours and CARE-less behaviour, was stark in its simplicity: a four-letter word beginning with ‘C’.

Keep reading this week’s editorial from Lee Brackstone and download the full Broadsheet here