When can I see my ageing parents again? The gaping hole at the heart of Boris Johnson's speech was empathy

The economy should serve the people. Based on the prime minister’s speech, it seems he believes instead that people should serve the economy – no matter the emotional cost

Let’s be honest, there were few clear answers in Boris Johnson’s speech last night. But most of the burning issues of this crisis at least got a tick box mention: schools, businesses, hospitality, isn’t the NHS brilliant (even though we’ve never believed in funding it properly). The usual, but with some relevant twists about the new activities we’re allowed – or shortly expected to be allowed – to do. Sometimes, though, it’s the things that aren’t said that can be most telling.

For there was a gaping vacuum at the heart of the prime minister’s speech, an absence that spoke louder than any words could about the things that do and don’t matter to the government in this extraordinarily shambolic and confusing official response. There was no mention of the thing many of us, on some universal human level, are finding most difficult of all. There was no mention of when we might be able to see our family and closest friends beyond our immediate households again.

For me, this means ongoing worry about my 69-year old-mum, who lives alone and who asks me on the phone each night when she might be able to see her grandchildren. It means more months of my nieces and nephews growing up in my absence. It means more concerns about friends who are struggling in their own isolation, some of whom have had literally no face to face contact with another human being since this all began.

And I understand it might be too soon to change these things – of course I do. Ultimately, I want people’s loved ones to remain safely with them rather than gasping their lives away on a ventilator, alone in a hospital room. Yet not to acknowledge this question; not to acknowledge the miserable loneliness and uncertainty many people face right now; to tell people they should head back to work in barely more than 12 hours if they can, with little time to put safety measures in place, but to make no mention of when they can visit their ageing parents, or meet up with distant lovers, or spending (appropriately socially distanced) time with friends again - well, it's simply cruel.

Is it any wonder that some accuse Johnson and his friends of seeing economic units of work rather than human beings, when the fact that most of us have given up seeing people who are precious to us is an afterthought not even worthy of a formal mention?

Today, of course, promises a 50-page document that is expected to expand on the "Stay alert" vagaries of yesterday’s monologue. And it seems likely (though I still couldn’t say certain) that there will be at least some reference to this issue later today.

But the fact remains that Johnson’s big chance to hearten the country in person was wasted. Here was his opportunity to make us feel that those in charge are competent and empathetic, in touch with how hard the social and emotional aspects of lockdown are, and yet he still considered it more important to reassure people that they could soon see their bosses rather than their parents. This is despite the fact that a Yougov poll earlier this month found that eight in 10 people would prefer the government to prioritise health and wellbeing over economic growth during the coronavirus crisis.

The economy cannot be entirely unpicked unpicked from people’s wellbeing, of course, but ultimately the economy should serve the people – and based on the prime minister’s speech, it seems he believes instead that people should serve the economy. As long as you’re still fulfilling your economic potential, who cares if you’re not seeing the people you love most?

Well prime minister, an awful lot of us actually.