Let us raise a glass – or cuppa – to the reopening of pubs, cafes, restaurants, shops, hairdressers, nail bars, gyms, swimming pools, libraries and everything else in England that opened yesterday.
And also to the non-essential retail and close-contact services resuming in Wales and in Northern Ireland, the lifting of a stay-at-home order and the return to classrooms of all school pupils for the first time since Christmas.
Because across the UK a pivotal NHS mass vaccination programme reducing infections, hospital admissions and deaths is gradually giving us back our lives.
The authorities must remain vigilant and we must be responsible – but the mood is unmistakably upbeat. Normality remains some way off yet there is cause for celebration. Let’s hope it doesn’t go wrong again.
Money chaser
Former Labour PM Gordon Brown is a pillar of integrity whereas Conservative David Cameron is a grubby money-chaser trading on Tory contacts to enrich himself.
So principled Brown’s call for a ban on former premiers and ministers selling themselves to the highest bidders deserves immediate implementation – whatever an inquiry discovers about Cameron’s lobbying on behalf of a financier whose business collapse threatens thousands of steel jobs.
Pertinent questions require answering by not only Cameron but Chancellor Rishi Sunak, Health Secretary Matt Hancock and other Ministers who appeared too willing to accommodate an ex-PM who gives the impression of putting his bank account before public service.
Made her mark
Shirley Williams was a prominent cabinet minister in the Labour governments of the 1970s when politics was dominated by men even more than now.
Her defection to create the SDP later helped cement Margaret Thatcher in power, but the Lib Dem peeress was a remarkable figure who made her mark on public life. RIP
