Try freedom
ENOUGH of this timorous, excessive, maddening caution, PM.
Our vaccines, and the Rolls-Royce of rollouts, were supposed to free us and our economy long before anyone else. Not to mention getting us away on holiday.
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Now look: Our advantage is blown.
Hundreds of thousands of Germans — despite the EU’s rollout chaos and fewer being double-jabbed than Brits — bask on Majorca’s sun-loungers with no order to self-isolate back home.
We’re nowhere. For Brits an amber-list break means returning to ten pointless days of solitary and a PCR test. There should be NO quarantine for the doubly-jabbed after a negative test, as public health Professor Robert Dingwall says.
Get us back on holiday from July 19, Boris. Though even that is absurdly late.
Yesterday was our original liberation date. Its cancellation was a huge error.
Daily infections doubled in May and again in June. But the hospitalisation and death tolls have barely flinched.
The jabs have worked. We should be free.
Tory self-harm
ANOTHER day, another rash Tory assault on their own voters.
After the rapid U-turn over a mooted 2p income tax hike to fund social care, private pensions are in their sights.
Millions saving hard for retirement would be hammered by tax grabs. What a message from a Tory Government: Save every penny. Then we clobber you.
Where can anyone save if not a pension? Other interest rates are an insult.
The Tories may want to soften up supporters for post-Covid financial pain.
The pain may be theirs on election day.
Glittering prize
ONE of the great Brexit prizes was always the new opportunity to trade with faster-growing economies beyond the EU.
Today, almost exactly five years since the referendum, we take our biggest stride yet down that golden road as Liz Truss begins talks on joining the CPTPP.
It is a £9trillion free trade area of 11 nations — including Japan, Canada, Mexico, Australia and New Zealand — with half a billion consumers.
Membership could prove a big boost to our economy and our farmers. And, guess what? It won’t mean adopting their laws or free movement.
The usual suspects oppose it, naturally. Once, they sneered that we would turn inwards post-Brexit.
We did the opposite, but still they sneer.
Mane event
WE’LL roar our Lions on to victory tonight.
(Although — whisper it quietly — a draw might not be the worst result given the possible fixtures ahead.)
Whatever happens, let’s see more urgency, more oomph.
Come on, England! Give ’em hell.
