Dishy Rishi is about to be put on furlough. ‘People have lost perspective,’ an ally of the Chancellor tells me. ‘We’ve spent £350billion protecting the economy, but we’ve now reached the point where this isn’t even registering. ‘Someone said to him last week, ‘Why aren’t you doing anything for the theatre?’ We’ve given the theatres … Read more
Last month I visited Wareham, my home town in Dorset. While there, I sat on the quay by the river Frome watching kids jumping into the water in the sunshine. If I’d done the same as them back in the 1950s, my mother would have half killed me. Polio, which was a scourge, could be … Read more
Months ago, I predicted that we would all come to hate the narrow, bossed-about new life the Government wants to force us to live. I was wrong. Most people have far too readily accepted limits to their lives which the world’s tyrannies would once have hesitated to impose on their citizens. Well, have you had … Read more
The threat of a second national lockdown, just as the UK’s resilient economy shows signs of recovering from the first, is a thoroughly depressing prospect. It illustrates so clearly the dilemma of a government under pressure to save the vulnerable from the scourge of Covid-19, but also wanting to avoid plunging the citizens of Britain … Read more
Britain is now in grave danger of sleepwalking into a second national lockdown. The consequences of doing so would be disastrous. We find ourselves in this wretched position partly because the Government’s main achievement since the pandemic first emerged in China has not been suppressing the virus or saving lives or the economy, but in … Read more
Tuesday, June 2, 1953: Coronation Day. With London decked out to celebrate its 27-year-old Queen, there was only one story in town. Or rather, two. Just four days earlier, with perfect timing, two men, hacking through the snow, had made it to the top of the world’s highest mountain. Edmund Hillary was a tall Kiwi … Read more
The bank manager was reasonably friendly but just a little aloof. First names were not used. He was Mr Jones. I was Mr Humphrys. We sat either side of his highly polished mahogany desk on which there were two very small glasses of dry sherry — one for him and one for me. I was … Read more
It’s the debate dividing Britain. Covid infections are doubling each week and experts believe the death toll will soon start to climb. Should ministers act quickly to stop a second wave or hold off to prevent more damage to the economy? With no easy options, these are some of the possibilities they are considering. DO … Read more
On the face of it, the transvestite ceramic artist Grayson Perry is one of the least likely people in all the world to say anything even mildly complimentary about Right-wingers. I don’t say this just because he likes to dress up in women’s clothes — although the Left, if you’ll pardon a generalisation, tends to … Read more
Had someone told me last summer that more than 50,000 people could die this year from a new, killer virus I would have been sceptical to say the least. Understandably, much of the focus on the Government’s handling of an unexpected pandemic has been on examining how many of those deaths could have been avoided … Read more