Strayside Sunday is our weekly political column written by Paul Baverstock, former Director of Communications for the Conservative Party:

In the days after Boris Johnson introduced lockdown on March 24th, I wrote in the Yorkshire Post and Stray Ferret in praise of the Prime Minister’s leadership and in praise of the substance and effectiveness of government communication at the time. 11 weeks later the PM’S moral leadership is under threat and the Government’s initial clarity of communication has been lost.

This week, hot on the heels of the credibility-sapping Cummings affair, the government has asked for, and succeeded in bringing, all members from every constituency in the land back to parliament.  Observing social distancing requirements, it took MPs 90 minutes to make their way through the queue to vote for a measure that disenfranchises any MP with an underlying health condition, or who is isolated for family reasons. This cannot be sustainable.

As parliament will soon be rehoused to make way for the pending multi-billion renovation of the Palace of Westminster, the Government should have grasped the opportunity for a continued virtual parliament, embracing technology in circumstances that make it both possible and advisable: Saving money for the taxpayer; repatriating MP’s to spend more time in their constituencies; closer and more accountable to the people they represent.  Little wonder that Harrogate and Ripon’s own ‘virtual’ MPs, Andrew Jones and Julian Smith, both voted to return to Westminster.

Now that both MPs are back in the capital, perhaps they could ask ministers for urgent clarification about the future of Harrogate’s Nightingale Hospital, thankfully under-utilised for covid cases, which, from Friday past, was being used to provide CT scans for non-covid patients. In the “Before Times” Harrogate relied greatly on the income from conferences and attendees.

The NHS’s contract to use the Convention Centre ends on June 30th.  Given the centrality of the centre to Harrogate’s economic future we need urgent information from the council about the plans for it. It may well be that the Department of Health and Social Care is hedging specialist beds capacity against a covid ‘second wave’ spike. It might just be that a decision is pending. Either way, any plan to get the town’s economy back on its feet needs the Convention Centre convening again, not least to generate some proportion of the £57m economic benefit it claimed to bring to the town in 2017/18.  Even the public acknowledgement of uncertainty by Harrogate Borough Councillors Cooper and Swift is better communication than saying nothing at all and signals to the local business community that they need to make contingent plans for a much straitened economic future.

No political column this week can fail to mention the killing of George Floyd.  As of writing, the charge against Minneapolis policemen, Derek Chauvin, has been elevated to second-degree murder and the other three officers face counts of aiding and abetting murder. Mr Floyd’s death was caught on video and, thanks to social media ‘shares,’ has now been seen by millions around the globe.

On Tuesday, activists asked us all to post a “Blackout Tuesday” black disc in place of our social media profile pictures and asked that we spend our time understanding how to combat the innate and institutionalised racism that the organisers say we are all guilty of, because we were born into white privilege.  While it is undeniable that the good and, let’s face it, mostly white burghers of genteel Harrogate cannot in any way appreciate the lived experience of an urban black Minnesotan, to extrapolate from that to a blanket charge of racism is wrong headed and dangerous.

Which is a clue for those of you who’ve asked why I won’t participate in discussion on social media.  A battle of ideas fought on social media can’t possibly have the space, tolerance and reasoned discourse needed if we are to bottom out loaded subjects like race and make progress toward real equality together.

I don’t believe it is possible or even wise to attempt to substantiate reason and complexity in 280 characters or, as Twitter says ‘less’ (when of course it should say ‘fewer’).  Titbits of virtue signalling, local bores, selfie whores, moaners and the ‘let’s all pile on kicking of those who made mistakes years ago, in contexts long forgotten’, are not of interest and gladden neither heart nor soul.

I celebrate the power of social media to reveal acts of criminal violence such as the killing of George Floyd but I also denigrate its dumbing down and silencing of real public discourse.

Some things are as simple as black and white; it’s just that most things are not.  Things in the public realm are and should be difficult. Reaching agreement and achieving compromise asks the best of us, while, IMHO (sigh), social media amplifies the worst.

That’s my Strayside Sunday.