This wasn’t supposed to happen. The British people have responded to a draconian lockdown — the Government-directed measure to stamp out coronavirus infection — with good humour and fortitude. Not only that, we have been significantly more observant of the rules than most other nations in similar lockdowns. Saturday’s Daily Mail reported a poll conducted … Read more
When did the authorities first become aware that this country would face a deadly contagion that would cost the lives of many thousands? It must be at least two months back. Six weeks ago on Tuesday, Boris Johnson delivered what then seemed a shocking statement in which he warned of a serious pandemic. At that stage, … Read more
Under normal circumstances the fact that the Prime Minister rose miraculously from his sickbed on Easter Sunday might have felt rather too much like the work of an overimaginative spin doctor. But given everything, I don’t think many people will begrudge Boris Johnson his Messiah moment. The Prime Minister being so dangerously ill with Covid-19 … Read more
Last week – as I was grappling with the strange, tortured sleep that’s become my companion during the Covid-19 crisis – I got shaken awake by the sound of rotor blades. It didn’t have the insect-like buzz of the police helicopter, but the dull, monotonous thud of one of the giant Chinooks. I later discovered … Read more
Like a bolt of lightning, the coronavirus has lit up the world in which we really live. The nation-state has proved to be the only institution with the power and authority to deal with the pandemic and shield its citizens from the dangers of an increasingly chaotic world. The ever-increasing international co-operation of which our … Read more
Ex-Chancellor Philip Hammond bags his FOURTH job since leaving Parliament in December after joining private equity firm By Harry Cole For The Mail On Sunday Published: 01:49 BST, 12 April 2020 | Updated: 01:49 BST, 12 April 2020 It is a well-trodden path for ex-Chancellors to cash in and take plum City jobs, but Philip … Read more
Medics were expecting Boris Johnson to be rushed to hospital three days before he was finally admitted – and only realised that he wasn’t coming when they saw him clapping for the NHS that evening on their television screens. The doctors at St Thomas’ Hospital in London were wearing full protective clothing on Thursday April … Read more
As close encounters go, it was the sort most of us have probably experienced at least once over the past few weird weeks. The lines in my small local supermarket had been clearly marked. There was one customer in front of me and she was fishing around in her bag for her credit card. I … Read more
RICHARD KAY: Did Boris Johnson fall victim to the No10 ‘machismo culture’? By Richard Kay for the Daily Mail Published: 22:03 BST, 10 April 2020 | Updated: 23:40 BST, 10 April 2020 The hardest part must be accepting the sympathy, those reassuring messages that have flooded in, while having to acknowledge that the exterior he … Read more
As a fellow scribbler remarked elsewhere this week, wild animals seem to possess ‘some atavistic sixth sense that humans are in disarray or on the retreat’. His theory is certainly borne out by my own observations of the behaviour of the local fauna in our South London suburb. For many years now, we’ve been plagued … Read more