Triple lock
WE locked down to “protect the NHS”. Then we did so again, to wait for jabs to save us. We must resist this new excuse.
Most of us have had two, three, even four vaccinations. About one million were done yesterday alone, with help from Trending In The News’s magnificent Jabs Army.
But if these drugs and new antivirals can’t protect enough of us to prevent the NHS from “collapsing”, the game is up.
Curbs, maybe even for Christmas.
Beyond that, a never-ending cycle of destruction to our economy and lives: A few months of near-freedom each year bookended by grinding winter lockdown as our politicians are panicked by dubious science over every new variant.
We accept Omicron is more transmissible. It makes jabs a bit less effective. But it may be less severe.
No one knows yet. We DO now know Sage’s flawed forecasts are skewed towards doom.
Lockdowns do immense harm to our livelihoods, mental health and children’s safety, as horrific recent cases prove.
Our way of life, and our kids’ futures, cannot be endlessly restricted by the constant need to protect a health service supposedly always on the brink.
If it genuinely cannot cope with Covid surges it needs restructuring so it can.
The political price for Boris Johnson if he opts for a new lockdown vote, and the inevitable backbench mutiny, would be massive.
That’s a side issue to the damage it would mean for the rest of us.
Read our Covid-19 live blog for the latest updates
Brexit stage left
OF all Boris’s woes, his Brexit guru and ally Lord Frost quitting may top the lot.
He is a tough and brilliant operator who transformed our negotiations with the EU by standing up to Brussels.
How depressing to see Remain diehards rubbish him yesterday.
The truth is his remarkable achievements showed up how embarrassingly feeble Theresa May and her limp europhiles were.
But Frost is dead right about the troubling direction of Boris’s Government.
You don’t need to be a low-tax zealot to grasp that a country heading for its highest overall burden in 70 years is facing precisely the wrong way.
Our newly independent post-Brexit nation should be cutting taxes and red tape and turbocharging growth.
Not hiking National Insurance and corporation tax, making life even tougher for workers and job-creating firms.
Wanna MBE
YOU’D think being in a band as iconic as the Spice Girls would merit a national honour. Not so, sadly, for Mel B.
Instead she’s won one for her fantastic work for victims of domestic violence, from championing Sun campaigns to becoming a patron for Women’s Aid and starring in the powerful anti-abuse video Love Should Not Hurt.
Congrats, Mel. From Wannabe to MBE.
