It’s back to our future
Hugs, mixing in homes, drinking in pubs and limited foreign travel from May 17 are among the measures to be confirmed in England by the Prime Minister today.
It will signal a country finally returning to the future.
The reawakening from lockdown of the UK – Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are heading in the same direction – is welcome after 15 months of a pandemic that changed the way we lived, and killed upwards of 127,000.
Thanks to the success of the NHS mass vaccination programme, we are hopefully at the beginning of the end. Yet it is true that nobody is safe until everybody is safe.
And a PM who takes credit for jabs must also accept responsibility for tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths – so there is no excuse for delaying a public inquiry.
Starmer’s task
Replacing one group of politicians most people don’t recognise with another load they haven’t heard of is no magic fix.
So Keir Starmer will know a reshuffle isn’t the answer to Labour’s woes.
When Boris Johnson has a track record of false promises yet his lot win most votes nationally, it shows that Labour and its leader have much to do.
Putting in place the best available team is important but the messengers are nothing without a convincing message.
So Labour must fast find a compelling appeal, as well as ruthlessly spotlighting the failures, fabrications and sleaze of the Prime Minister and his party.
New faces require a new tune to play.
Champ David
After warning that climate change is the planet’s greatest threat, David Attenborough is a brilliant choice to represent us at this autumn’s eco summit.
The appeal and knowledge of the presenter is why the COP26 gathering of world leaders in Scotland should ask him now for a communique and sign up to it immediately.
