Monday
It’s always fascinating to watch how a government minister deals with a major U-turn in policy. Four years ago Michael Gove was happily telling the country how the UK would not only retain all the benefits of the single market, but we’d also end up with a better deal with the EU. Today he came to the Commons to explain how we’d be building lorry parks in Kent and elsewhere and how there would be significant time and financial costs to leaving the EU at the end of the year. You’d have thought that Gove might have at least had the grace to show some signs of contrition; instead he just brazened it out with passive-aggressive politeness as if he was delivering on his original promises. It was borderline sociopathic. We were then treated to Matt Hancock having to explain why when the government had said there would be no need to wear face masks in shops, what it had really meant was that we would need to wear them after all. Hancock’s response was rather more human. He just got tetchier and tetchier whenever someone pointed out the obvious, and it rather looked as if most of his anger was directed at his cabinet colleagues, who had made him look a fool yet again. This was far from the first time he had found himself in this position during the coronavirus pandemic and it probably wouldn’t be the last. You could tell he was near the end of his tether. Only his ambition is preventing him from resigning. Oliver Dowden meanwhile was having his first experience of this kind of humiliation as he tried to put a positive gloss on the reversal of the Huawei decision. Poor Oliver, who looks more like a luxury goods salesman in a posh department store than a cabinet minister, seemed totally out of his depth as he desperately shuffled his papers trying to find the prepared line to take on any question. It was the longest hour of his ministerial career. For what it’s worth, if ever I were to find myself in such a situation, I’m sure I’d do an Oliver. Which is one of the many reasons for me never going into politics.
Tuesday
Face masks are the new centre of the culture wars. Wear one and you are in danger of being called a ‘woke snowflake’. And if you’re a mask refusenik – some are calling them muzzles or face nappies – you’re firmly linked to the libertarian right. The battleground has even reached the house of Commons itself, where Tory MP – and self-styled Brexiter iconoclast – Desmond Swayne declared that it would be a ‘monstrous imposition’ for him to be forced to wear a mask while out shopping. Swayne, it should be remembered, had no qualms about blacking up his face to go to a fancy dress party. It will come as no surprise, I’m sure, that I was one of the early adopters of face masks having secured a couple – one for me, one for my wife – from the chemist in late March. Partly because of my hypochondriacal tendencies in all matters apart from my prostate, but mainly because the government was at that stage adamant they were of little value. Which was a sure sign – as South Korea seemed to illustrate – that they were actually effective and the government would sooner or later be forced into a U-turn. Not that I’ve worn my mask that often. But that’s because I rarely venture out to shops and have yet to use public transport again. Even so, I can’t see what the ‘anti-maskers’ have against them. It’s hardly the most onerous imposition to wear a covering to go shopping and if there’s even the smallest of possibilities of either not transmitting the coronavirus to another person – or indeed being infected yourself – then why not do it? Since when did it become an Englishman’s God given right to kill or be killed in the name of facial freedom?
Wednesday
Something almost unprecedented happened today. I was idly scrolling through Twitter when I saw that a fellow Spurs supporter had completely forgotten that we were playing Newcastle this evening until she received the team news. As indeed had I. Normally each game – no matter how insignificant – is etched into my subconscious and I measure out my weeks by what team we are playing and on what day. And when I did realise the match was kicking off in an hour’s time, I didn’t feel any need to rearrange Facetime calls with my children until after the game was over. Instead I just turned on the TV when there were about six minutes left, in time to see Harry Kane make sure of the win with his second goal of the night. And even then I didn’t feel that much joy. Undoubtedly this is partly because Spurs have nothing really to play for in their remaining games – other than the unwanted privilege of competing in the Europa League – but it’s also because I can feel myself falling out of love with live sport where there is no crowd. It was the same at last week’s first Test match against the West Indies. I could take or leave a tight game that should have felt tense. I need to feel the passion, even if it’s only second hand. My enjoyment in sport can just be added to the coronavirus casualty list. It was with impeccable timing, then, that Spurs emailed this week inviting me to renew my season ticket. They couldn’t promise how many – if any – live games I would be able to see, but they quite fancied a 20% deposit from me on the off chance that circumstances changed. Needless to say I am going to cough up.
Thursday
Chris Grayling is the gift that keeps on giving. Having been safely installed by No 10 and Dominic Cummings as the sole contender for chair of the intelligence and security committee, Failing Grayling managed to lose a rigged, one-horse ballot when he was blindsided by fellow Tory Julian Lewis, who put himself forward at the last minute and scraped over the line with the support of Labour and the SNP. There again, Grayling not having the intelligence to see that someone was plotting against him on the intelligence committee should come as no surprise to anyone who has studied his political career. Indeed it was that very lack of intelligence that had made him such an attractive prospect as an insider stooge to Classic Dom and Boris Johnson. During his time in cabinet as justice secretary and transport secretary, Failing Grayling was responsible for any number of disasters. The part-privatisation of the probation service, banning books for prisoners, the railways timetabling chaos, the bailout for the East Coast rail network, drones flying over Gatwick airport. You name it, he did it. His greatest triumph though was to award a £13m ferry contract to Seaborne Freight: a company that had no ferries and no ferry routes. It’s been estimated that his mistakes have cost the country £3bn. Or to put it another way, we could have paid him £500m just to sit at home and watch TV and still have had the money to build a couple of hospitals. To make the ISC story even sweeter, Lewis was immediately thrown out of the Tory party by No 10 for disloyalty on a vote that was not supposed to be whipped: this from a prime minister who has been serially disloyal to wives, friends, colleagues and prime ministers. Still, Lewis will get the last laugh as the long-delayed report into Russian interference into British elections will now be published early next week. We’ll just have to wait to find out how much has been redacted.
Friday
Even though some lockdown measures have been gradually eased, many of my routines remain as they have been for the past four months. I still have bad dreams every night, I still wake up filled with anxiety – it can take me an age to feel brave enough to get out of bed – and I rarely leave the house. I also still don’t have the concentration to read more than a few pages at a time, even though I have several books piled up my bed which I am desperate to get through – yes, I’m thinking of you, Hilary Mantel – which means that almost every evening has become a TV fest. I have rattled through three series of Ozark, which I can thoroughly recommend, and this week I was mesmerised by the first part of the documentary series on Rupert Murdoch, which I couldn’t help watching as if it was the third series of Succession. But what I am most enjoying is Channel 4’s series Devon and Cornwall, mostly because nothing very much happens to nice people in beautiful rural locations. I can thoroughly recommend it as the TV equivalent of Valium: just for an hour, all feelings of stress dissipate. I have also ventured more than a mile from the house occasionally: to visit friends for a meal in their garden and a self-catering break in Somerset to visit other friends. Holiday plans are also beginning to take shape, though those come with their own heartbreak. I am longing to see my daughter and for ages held on to a faint hope that it might be possible to get out to see her in Minneapolis, but that is now clearly not possible. Come Christmas, it will be a year since I have seen her and I miss her dreadfully. So instead of the US, we have a self-catering break with friends in Norfolk lined up, along with a week in Spain – coronavirus spikes and general anxiety permitting – again staying with friends. Though I’m beginning to wonder whether we shouldn’t have gone to Norway. It turns out that the Norwegians have been so efficient and law-abiding about their partial lockdown that in some parts of the country the death rates have actually fallen. Several undertakers have had to ask for financial help from the government as the number of funerals per month has dropped. One firm has gone from 30 to less than 10 with not one of the deaths attributable to Covid-19. Sounds like my kind of country.
Digested week: The blame game begins.
