It's a good job that government ministers have chauffeurs.
If they drove their own fat backsides round London, there’d be chaos.
They don’t know that amber at the traffic lights means “Stop”. They think motorists can choose what it means, and travel blithely on if they feel like it.
That’s the message from Tory politicians who want to end all Covid restrictions as fast as possible. But some, like Health Minister Lord Bethell, say amber means “turn round and go back home”.
Chief Traffic Policeman Boris Johnson, standing on a box in the middle of the road with his little whistle, shouts “Everybody listen to me! Go where I tell you!”
It would be funny if it weren’t so serious. The Government’s traffic-light system of permitted foreign travel descended into farce within hours of its announcement.
Encouraged by Environment Secretary George “Useless” Eustice, an ardent abolitionist of controls, Brits immediately jetted off to Spain, Italy and Mexico.
As soon as “essential only” travel was permitted, 150 flights took Brits to amber destinations. An estimated 55,000 are flocking to the forbidden sun every day.
There is no way that all of these people will observe the quarantine rules when they return. Who believes Home Office boasts of 10,000 daily home visits by isolation inspectors?
Inevitably, some tourists will bring back the coronavirus from the packed resorts they visit.
It’s an amber gamble.
“This virus does not spread by itself. People spread it,” said an Indian epidemiologist, pointing out the obvious that ministers have clearly forgotten.
Boris Johnson’s road map has come to grief at the first set of traffic lights.
Buckle up for a bumpy ride.
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As a pupil at All Saints CE Primary in Normanton, West Yorkshire, I was taught Christian hymns.
The custom continued at grammar school, and though I cannot now claim a strong faith, the hymns are still with me.
They are part of our cultural heritage, as well as a religious rite, and I still enjoy Songs of Praise. Except when the singers are celebs dolled up to the eyebrows for the cameras.
In search of a new, woke identity, the silly old C of E told its 4,600 schools to avoid hymns with “strongly confessional lyrics” because they might upset teachers and children.
So, no more All Things Bright And Beautiful – because the Lord God Made Them All. Or Jerusalem, the nearest we have to a national anthem for England. And forget, Hills Of The North, Rejoice.
If the historic English hymnal is not safe in the hands of the Church of England, God help us. Well, he was Our Help In Ages Past, as the hymn says. But don’t mention that.
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You wait three years for reform of our run-down railways, and then you get semi-de-privatisation promised in two more years. Maybe.
The Tories are too obsessed with ideological hatred of public ownership to do the job right. Private companies will still milk the industry, while fares soar and rail staff are rewarded with redundancy.
Great British Railways? More like Great Boris Rip-off.
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Fish-eating ospreys are returning to Wensleydale. Magnificent creatures, and welcome as long as they don’t behave like the seaside gulls who swoop on your takeaway.
