LET me preface these remarks with a repeat of what the column said before. The rapid spread of the coronavirus is a real threat to all of us. It has the ability to strike anyone. Rich and poor alike are at risk. We all need to take the appropriate precautions and encourage others to do likewise – even royalty.

As this column has also pointed out, Westminster has approved legislation that gives the Government largely unfettered power to deal with the epidemic. We have also warned of the risks of granting this power to a bumbling administration in a state with no written, codified constitution.

In these circumstances it is essential to examine the moral codes to which our rulers subscribe, to get a sense of how they might exercise this unfettered power. Why? Because in the absence of formal constraints or commitments the only guide to future actions is past behaviour.

Do you remember when Margaret Thatcher pitched up at the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and declared: “There is no such thing as society”? Later she backtracked a little, suggesting she was misunderstood. Maybe, but her words led to decades of austerity, as her enthusiastic followers insisted that people had to “stand on their own two feet” and not rely on the “nanny state”.

Over time, a vile, and I would suggest, pernicious, doctrine took hold in the UK that people ought to look out only for themselves. Public sector financing was cut to the bone, while billions were found for weapons of mass destruction and vanity projects such as an abortive garden bridge across the Thames. Austerity was the way forward because, as Theresa May said to a nurse who asked for help, “there is no money tree”.

We are now asked to believe that Theresa May got it all wrong, because the money tree has not only been found, it has an abundance of fruit. Of course, this being a Tory administration, banks got the first pickings. But it looks like funds will now be found for others, arguably more needful.

All of this is welcome, although it is a huge pity that it took a real virus to overcome the virus of self-centredness. Society is back.

Thatcher, too, was wrong. The Prime Minister is “wrapping his arms round us”. Figuratively speaking, thank goodness. Moreover, “we are all in this together”.

It is not unalloyed good news. The UK Government is saturated with ministers whose moral code owes more to Theresa May than Mother Theresa. There is still a moral vacuum and a darkness at its heart that determines its decisions.

This is truly alarming and, taken together with ministers’ ineptitude, has led to calls for a “national” Government. If such an administration were all-party, there may be some merit to the idea.

Tories would like it as it would enable them to spread the blame when the inevitable enquiries are launched. But on the plus side, if it were truly all-party, then it would no doubt curb the wilder excesses of the current crop of ministers, while ensuring the few constitutional safeguards we enjoy are not wholly abandoned.

These are troubled times. For most of us, getting by from day to day while looking after our loved-ones is a top priority. One day, perhaps too late for some owing to UK Government incompetence, this pandemic will pass. The world will likely look very different and we will need to deal with these new circumstances.

So, we really ought to be thinking a little bit about what might take the place of the present banjaxed system of governance that made the effects of the pandemic so much worse. Space permits us to look at only one abomination whose time must be up.

Assuming the UK as a state continues even in the short term, the House of Lords cannot remain. We cannot, in a post-pandemic world, allow hundreds of unelected jobsworths determine the fate of you, and your family. The House of Lords has been afforded many opportunities to reform and failed the test. As recently as last week, scorning the likely public opprobrium, their lordships were quibbling about their ability to elect hereditary peers.

What’s a hereditary peer, I hear you ask? Well, and you will scarcely believe this in the 21st century, read on. This is from the Electoral Reform Society

“Conservative Lord Reay – an investment banker whose great-grandad’s cousin’s dad’s fourth cousin’s dad’s cousin’s great-great-great-grandad was made a lord in 1628 – has secured a seat in the House of Lords following a hereditary peer ‘by-election’.”

The 15th Lord Reay can now vote on our laws and claim £305 a day after securing just more than 100 votes from peers in a system branded a “mockery of our democracy”.

As my dear old mum would have said: “if we are spared, let’s see an end to this.”

This column welcomes questions from readers