A strange day with differing developments. The thing that sriked me as most important has been what has happened in Germany – the European country that seemed to be doing best. I get a sense of greater restlessness.
By far the biggest development so far in WH2020 has been Trump’s comment a few days ago that people could inject themselves with bleach to fight the the coronavirus. This has been widely ridiculed and there have been reports from many parts of the US of people actually ingesting bleach and other such liquids and having to be treated by the emergency services. Of all the crazy things that this President has said so far during the campaign this is…
The above was painted by my daughter-in-law, Lucille Smithson, who is a professional portrait painter based in Los Angeles and is producing a number of works relating to the coronavirus pandemic. This is what she wrote about this painting: This is Nicola and Gwen. Nicola is an advanced nurse practitioner on a #covid-19 ward in Edinburgh. Gwen who is her grandmother, tragically passed away on the same ward last month from coronavirus. Yvonne, Nicola’s mother, reached out to me here…
It was inevitable that there was going to be a more positive mood emanating from Downing Street following the return of the prime minister, Boris Johnson. Most of the front pages reflect this although a move at this stage to relax the lockdown could be a very big gamble and cost thousands of lives. Certainly the latest numbers of the total fatalities are down sharply and if this does indicate a trend then clearly the time might be right for…
But still no lockdown betting markets It has been inevitable given what a commanding figure Johnson is that him being out of the picture recovering from the coronavirus has exposed the relative weakness of his cabinet team. Raab never really convinced as the official nominated stand-in while HealthSec Hancock is lumbered by his commitment to 100k tests a day by the end of the month. A fit Boris, surely, would have stopped such an announcement being made. It appears a…
Continued incarceration simply based on age could have an electoral price GE2017 might seem a long time ago but TMay’s government saw on that day what can happen when the oldies are hacked off. It might be recalled that there was marked decline in the numbers of over 70s actually voting following the fury over the “Dementia Tax”. The turnout change amongst the oldies was far greater than other age groups. Could the lockdown endgame produce a similar or even…
Amongst all the developments during this extraordinary week the one that stands out surely is the advice by Donald Trump to inject disinfectant into people in order to combat the virus. Apparently it came just want him and hadn’t been discussed at all with other members of the the President’s advisory team. Have a good night. Mike Smithson
The big thing politically in the UK this week has been Starmer’s first time out at PMQs and this has got me pondering. We saw how Johnson’s deputy visibly relaxed yesterday after Starmer had ended his allocated six questions suggesting that this was quite an ordeal for the Foreign Secretary. I just wonder how other recent Tory PMs would have coped. My guess is that TMay would have been less phased but that Cameron would have struggled. We’ll know in…