Maybe it was a headline. A headline that, maybe, I’m paraphrasing. It was the day after the BBC aired its “Night In” telethon and we were informed that the stars and celebrities had ‘raised £27 million” for the NHS. I found myself thinking , “That’s great. Did they have a whip-round after the show?” And why not? After all, the show featured Prince William - his Gran’s one of the richest people on the planet and he’s due to inherit most of it eventually - I’m sure he must be good for a bob or two. But no. Of course not. The ‘stars’ hadn’t raised all that money. The people of this country had raised it by putting their hands in their collective pocket.

Even in these straitened times, when folk are on furlough and when the unfortunate workers at Wetherspoons have discovered that their wealthy employer doesn’t give a stuff about them, men and women across this nation chose to make a difference. Across this country that has again discovered community, as we have clapped the courage of those working in our hospitals to keep people alive, folk have chosen to make a difference, often on the most limited of resources. Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not dissing the performers or princes that put themselves out to make this show. Kudos where it’s due. But let’s be clear where the kudos lies here, and let’s ask ourselves some important questions.

Let’s begin with a question I heard asked during the last general election campaign. “Why do we need billionaires?” It’s a good question. According to 2017 data we have 54 billionaires in the United Kingdom. Imagine if they had all got together (or held a Zoom conference - social distancing and all that) and said, “How’s about it lads? Whatever this telethon makes on the night, we’ll match it.” That’s half a million each, or 0.05% of their wealth at most.

So where have the billionaires been? How have they contributed to this country’s campaign against coronavirus? Some have donated some cash. Again, kudos where it’s due. At the same time we have seen Richard Branson (net ‘worth’ £5 billion)  seeking financial backing from UK taxpayers - you know, the folk who also donated to the ‘Night In’ telethon - to back loans to support the companies that feed his bank account while personally paying no tax at all. Hedge fund managers have been boasting about the ‘killings’ they are making as share prices shift as a result of the uncertainties and chaos that have come in the wake of COVID-19. Still, it’s an ill wind and all that. Clouds and silver linings, eh?

Why do we need billionaires? What if we don’t? What if this crisis is reminding us who we really need - who really keep this country, and every other country that has embraced the most community corroding form of Capitalism the world has ever seen, going? Guess what? It hasn’t been the billionaires kept safe on their vast estates and their private islands. It hasn’t been the celebrities and the stars. It hasn’t been the Kardashians.

It’s been the nurses and the doctors who have kept people well enough to work and to generate this nation’s wealth long before this virus ever mutated. It’s been the the cleaners and the support staff who are still in our hospitals who have made sure that they can do their jobs.

It’s been the shop-workers who have stocked the shelves and smiled at us at the tills as too many of us have thought their service ‘menial’ in the good old days when they just generated wealth for their employers, but who now, let’s face it, stand between most of us and starvation or wiping our bums with a damp cloth.

It’s been the bus drivers who have driven us to work so that people can earn those few pounds that they pledged the other night and to get essential workers - now there’s a telling phrase - to their places of work but who, in happier days, just generated wealth for their companies. If you’re interested, a good few of them have succumbed to this disease as well.

I could go on and I feel a little guilty that I won’t but I need to ask a bigger question. Who will we value when all this has passed? Who will we think is ‘important’ to our society?  Who has kept things going while everything else has fallen apart? Has it been the billionaires or has it been the bus drivers and the nurses and the truck drivers and the bin men? Who, ultimately, can we not live without?

Will we still gaze, glassy eyed in admiration, at the spectacular wealth of billionaires? Or will we ask where they were when millions of folk that worked for them for a pittance put their hands in their pockets or put themselves at risk for us?