This article was originally published in October 2020.

I am ashamed to admit that after ten years living in UAE, I think I care less about my home country than I did. I love so much about it; don’t get me wrong. As the place where my children live, were educated at vast expense and now work, I want to see the UK succeed as an economic powerhouse as well as a compassionate country that is recognised as such, globally.

As far as the economy is concerned, there are so many challenges that it’s tin hat time. The second wave, a delay in a vaccine discovery, no-deal Brexit and a frustrated workforce who have become committed viewers of “Homes Under the Hammer”, “Judge Rinder” and other daytime televisual mush all point to a long and painful journey back to ‘the good times’.

In those pre-covid good times we were complaining about pretty much everything too. But now, in a wistful look back eight months on, we can see that we were at least doing the complaining in a pub, cheek by ever flabby jowl. Face masks were things oriental travelers wore en-route to London and Bond Street, where the tills would sound as if in some mystical tintinnabulous wonderland, ringing out reassuringly.

We took for granted that Boris and his collection of lightweight heavyweights would tell us one thing and do, or mean, another. But it didn’t really matter so much. Now though, getting it right has become absolutely crucial. Getting the message across clearly couldn’t be more important. And yet it would seem they have pretty much all failed. They may have got it wrong, and they absolutely can’t communicate effectively at all.

Worse, we are being led by liberal elite ‘celebrities’ in our thinking, being shrieked at on Twitter and other social media vox pop outlets. I allow Piers Morgan to annoy me. Kay Burley too. It is ridiculous that their “look at me, I’m important and relevant” utterances even register, but they do.

This is, albeit a tiny example of, why I worry that the UK is becoming a less compassionate place. It certainly looks like it. It’s very rare to see people give credit where it’s due or extend a helping hand to those who need it. It’s every second that something unconstructive and undermining is levelled at someone and we lose a bit of faith in the world we live in and retreat into our shells, protecting ourselves and our own. We see much more of what is happening around us due to 24/7 news and the dreaded phone, such as refugees arriving on the Kent coast from France – but it’s happening there, not here, so let’s forget it. Blame the frogs. Send them home.

I don’t love my home country less, but I do think I care less. I look at it from a few thousand miles away and shake my head, eyebrows raised, sucking the air through my teeth like a plumber about to tell you the damage. Do I really care if Boris flip-flops weekly about whether you should go to work or not, eat out to help out or go grouse shooting? Yes, but not massively. I certainly don’t care if Megan Markle and Hollywood Harry opine about climate change and The Donald from their hideous Santa Barbara pad. I suppose I should really, really care that a British government will renege on a point of international law, but it all seems so inevitable, given the prime minister’s reputation as a man of no principle. Ah well.

I, like many others here in UAE, managed to escape the summer heat following much nasal probing and swabbing. The Emirates airline staff were fantastic, dressed as they were in Chernobyl-style PPE, despite the swingeing cutbacks and reduction in choices of on-board wines. Cloudy Bay or Cloudy Bay… no thanks.

It was a joy to get to London, despite the requirement to quarantine for 14 days, which I sort of did. When I was allowed off the leash, being a social badger, I lunched enthusiastically. On one occasion a friend, Michael Henderson, turned up with Jeremy Paxman in tow! I liked him. He was interesting and engaging, but he did reveal that he is exactly the same person in the flesh as he is on screen, when he suggested the waitress “get to the point” as she laboured over the main courses!

Over lunch we talked of Michael’s recently released book, That Will Be England Gone, a look back at brighter days, a simpler life in England, interwoven with tales of cricket and cricketers, writers, conductors and composers. This looking back, naturally, led to a general grumble about everyone and anyone in charge of anything. Obviously Boris and the Cabinet got it in the neck, Robert Peston, the editor of the Times, Gary Lineker for speaking badly and presenting football “harlarts”, and Colin Graves, the erstwhile chairman of the ECB. Introducing The Hundred rankled badly with the table, although as the father of a son who plays professional cricket, I rather hope it works.

I spent three weeks in Portugal as well. Portugal! How could this be after we’d been told that it was a hotbed of virus and pestilence? British Airways did their damndest to ensure I never made it due to their utterly inept performance in Terminal 5 queue management, but once there, it was fabulous. Cascais, Sintra and then the Algarve for some serious relaxing (and more lunching).

Back here in the desert, the woes of Europe, the UK in particular, seem to belong to you, less so me. I feel a strange, possibly subconscious detachment from it all. Perhaps I’ve let it go in my mind  because we’ve all overcome so much before and will do again. I am a natural optimist and know it will all be okay in the end. Lunch with Hendo and Paxo may even be a celebration of what is to come, not what we have lost.