Indecision’s final
HOLIDAYS in France set to come off the “amber-plus” quarantine list. Spain to be kept off the list. Covid cases down for a fifth day in a row.
So why is it difficult to react with unbridled enthusiasm?
With his approval rating ebbing away, Boris Johnson had better get clear on virus guidance[/caption]
For that, the blame must lay squarely at the feet of the Government, which has made such a hash of its virus guidance over a prolonged period.
Christmas was on, then off. Freedom Day became Freedom Delay.
Vaccine passports, once an inconceivable imposition, are now firmly on the table.
Holiday destinations pop in and out of risk lists almost faster than planes can get there.
When there’s a new Covid policy along every day, who can blame the public for becoming less and less compliant?
It’s not helped when the reasons for rules are muddled, poorly explained or simply non-existent.
Take the latest suggestion that football fans will need to be double-jabbed to get into stadiums holding over 20,000.
So transmission is a risk at Burnley (capacity 21,944) but not Brentford (17,250). Good luck working that one out.
There’s an important line between a Government that occasionally listens to criticism, and one that flip-flops almost as a default setting, stumbling around until it bumps into success.
With his luck in the polls ebbing away, Boris Johnson had better find it quick.
Gold in failure
REPURPOSING dinghies used for illegal migrants’ Channel crossings and donating them to youth groups may, as a source says, “make the most of a bad situation”.
But we mustn’t let the PR stunt blind us to the humiliating failure that has enabled it: namely Home Secretary Priti Patel’s inability to stem people- trafficking by callous gangmasters.
For all that Mrs Patel talks a good game about her “unwavering determination”, nearly 9,000 illegal migrants have arrived on our shores from France in 2021 to date, with the total predicted to hit 22,000 before the year is out.
At the rate the situation is worsening, it may not be long before every child in the UK has their own boat.
Put your bets on Team GB for a sailing gold at the 2032 Olympics now.
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Pride before fool
THERE are several words for a married father of four seemingly in a boozy stupor as a gaggle of bum-flashing beauties nearly half his age cavort around him.
“Pride” and “dignity” — Wayne Rooney’s watchwords for his management of Derby County just hours before the scenes in a hotel at the weekend — are not the first that leap to mind.
We’re sure the ex-England hotshot’s long-suffering wife Coleen will have a few alternative suggestions, though.
