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The Prime Minister reassured me a few hours ago that we are winning the battle against Covid 19. I’m not quite sure how that works. If the new covid is 71% more transmissible than the old one, doesn’t it follow that there will be 71% more people getting it and 71% more people going into hospital. The hospitalisations are increasing in London and south east and will probably spread North again with millions of Christmas excursions. But what does it matter, we have the Nightingale hospitals? It’s easy to create hospital beds when you want to. Take over a warehouse or exhibition hall, put in some electrics, oxygen and partitions, add the bed, sheets, pillows… Voila, suddenly we have created 20,000 new hospital beds. Play with the figures a bit and hospitals can ‘re-purpose’ another 13,000 hospital beds for Covid. As, according to NHS statistics for September last year, we have 100,370 beds available for general and acute patients, it would seem likely that the people who would normally be occupying those beds are no longer receiving treatment. How else can you suddenly find 13% of your beds empty? But, let’s stick with it. As medicine is becoming increasingly specialised, where do you find the nurses and doctors to treat these 13,000 patients? I have experienced the unerring care of our hospital staff and feel convinced that they always do their utmost in every situation. However, how can we ask nurses specifically trained for prostate or obstetric patients, for example, to become experts in pulmonary care? Should we expect nurses that normally work in outpatients to successfully work in intensive care. As much as we might want to shuffle the staff around it becomes even more difficult when, according to the Nursing Times, 12% or 43,617 nursing posts are vacant. Then the Nuffield Trust says 10% of speciality postgraduate medical training post are unfilled. The Trust says, ‘One recent survey found that two-in-five consultants (40%) and nearly two-thirds of senior trainee doctors (63%) said that there were daily or weekly gaps in hospital medical cover.  Where gaps in rotas mean there are not sufficient senior medical staff to assure the quality and safety of training, junior doctors may be withdrawn from hospitals, reducing the staffing complement even further.’ We can’t find the nurses or the doctors to look after the 100,000 beds we do have, how are the medical staff supposed to cope with an extra 20,000 or 20%? Things will soon be fine though (well, in three years and three years too late), the government is going to give student nurses £5000 a year, so they’ll only have to find another £4000 a year for their course fees plus their food, accommodation and other living expenses. In the meantime we must once again express our thanks and sincere gratitude to everyone working within our NHS, the other frontline services and those in the retail sector still managing to deliver essential supplies.  

Well, it’s the Christmas that keeps giving. A mutation, a u-turn, a novelty hero and an extra tier as a special surprise. It’s a shame Boris didn’t get a bottle for Christmas. We all knew what was going to happen because we’ve got brains. We knew on Wednesday when the prime minister reassured us about a jolly Christmas, albeit a little one, that there would be a surprise in store. All the signs were there. The lockdown produced a temporary lull, a respite, but as soon as it was eased the numbers started going up – cases, hospitalisations and deaths. It’s a shame he didn’t have the bottle to tell everyone Christmas should only be one day, and discourage us from planning for a longer break. Instead, he said such a move would be ‘inhuman’. But, in fairness, Boris’ inadequacy as a leader is matched by all the other England-based parties. Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales managed to decipher the writing on the wall and trod their own paths. France, Germany, Italy and many other European nations had already beefed up their Covid precautions. Sadly, we have no personalities big enough to impose their will on the nation and drag it along behind them. Worse still, we have a significant proportion of the populace firm believers that all these rules don’t apply to them. Those old or weird enough to remember watching ‘Spinal Tap’, a 1984 spoof film about a rock band on tour, will inevitably recall the scene where guitarist Nigel Tufnel proudly demonstrates his amplifiers with a volume control going up to eleven rather than universal ten. It is shameful that no one in ‘control’ of our pandemic response considered that Tier 3 might not be adequate and we might have to turn it up a notch. Ironically, the public, or some of them, have chosen their own yuletide leader. Top seller in Christmas novelty gifts is a mug featuring… Dr Chris Witty bearing a variety of slogans like ‘Next slide please’ and ‘Stay home, save lives’. And, is the vaccine the answer? Not until we’ve all been jabbed. When us wrinklies have had the vaccine we should be safe, but no one has yet said we can’t transmit the virus. So, although I may be safe in January, people I come into contact with may be at risk. The current plan is to have all adults vaccinated by April. If we demonstrate the same delivery expertise as we have in testing and ‘track and trace’, for April read August. US president Thomas Jefferson was quite right when he said, “The government you elect is the government you deserve.”

Just as I was growing accustomed to a no-deal where we divorced ourselves from the rules and regulations of the European Union I received the glad tidings that we had a trade deal with Singapore. Hurray. While in the EU we benefitted through the 40 trade deals the EU has with other countries or economic groups. They accounted for just 11% of our trade. We have rolled over (continued) 27 of these deals on our own account. We also have deals or hope to broker deals worth 40% of our overseas trade. The odd 49% is our trade with the EU, we will not have an agreement with them. So over half of our trade will be under World Trade Organisation rules. No, there must be a mistake, where did that word ‘rules’ come from. No one ever said there would be more rules replacing the EU rules. Rules? What do these rules cover. Well, they are to control anti-import tariffs, ease custom procedures, discourage domestic laws and taxes that may be described as protection and reduce quotas and subsidies. Hang on, we’re leaving the EU to escape rules which are remarkably similar to those of the WTO. And don’t forget that by the time we have negotiated a trade deal, it will be even closer to the EU’s rules. For example, Canada has spent four years negotiating a deal with the EU. As the UK is only part of Canada’s trade with Europe and the Canadians will not want to upset the EU, there is no way we’ll get a deal that is better than the EU one. Don’t worry, say the anti-Europeans, we’ll do more trade with Australia, New Zealand and all our old pals in the Commonwealth. Don’t bet on it. The whole EU business with Australia (with WTO rules) only puts it third behind Japan and China in Australia’s trade figures, so our proportion of that will not be large. What we must not forget, countries will not do a deal with us unless there is something in it for them. What will the Australians want? I’m sure food exports would be part of their deal, but their meat hygiene standards are similar to the US and probably do not meet our current criteria. Theresa May’s deal does not look so shabby now. And of all that money we are saving from coming out of the EU and are going to put into the NHS, it appears up to £10bn has already been earmarked to subside British businesses like car manufacture, fishermen, sheep farmers and chemical suppliers. Never mind, all these things will work themselves out, but don’t anticipate a quick fix. The WTO’s Doha development round started in 2001 and has dragged on ever since.

You can pretty much rely on an MP to open his mouth and say something that he hasn’t really thought through. Take Steve Baker for instance. He is deputy chair of the Covid Recovery Group, a group of Tory MPs set up to scrutinize the government’s response to the virus. He called the latest tier announcement “truly appalling” and said that he was “open to supporting measures” but only if it could be “clearly demonstrated that the government intervention will save more lives than it costs”. So Mr Baker, how are you going to demonstrate this relationship between lives and costs and, if the cost is too great, who is going to decide who lives and dies? There are a number of factors to take into consideration. It initially seems painfully obvious that saving a young person’s life in intensive care is cost effective because they will have many years of work to pay for that care. A retired person will be making no such contribution to the cost. However, that older person will already have contributed a lifetime of taxes and so, we should allow, they have already paid for the treatment. If that is the case, on financial grounds alone, everyone who needs a hospital bed should either get one or not get one, everyone or no one. Instead Mr Baker seems to be suggesting that we let the virus do the dirty work on the most vulnerable, on the elderly, they are just collateral damage. (Mr Baker is 50 in 2021.) Next, if we assume that the Prime Minister’s stay in hospital was typical, then his treatment cost us three days in intensive care (£1932* a day) and three days on a ward (£413* a day) which makes a total of six days and a cost of £7,035. As the average pub pays a third of its takings*** or £3800** a week to the exchequer in non-Covid times and, I assume, all their suppliers are making similar contributions, it seems plausible that, because we will not be paying furlough, a busy pub will just about finance one person to be hospitalized for a week. We just need to hope that, without lockdown and tiers, the hospitality industry will make enough money to pay for all the extra victims finding themselves in hospital. It’s easy to say we have 20,000 Nightingale beds, where are the doctors and nurses for them? Finally, accepting it’s perfectly reasonable for Covid to be self-financing. Just one small hitch, 3,258 people have died in the last seven days. Who is going to go around to people’s homes and tell them that their husband, wife, children, grandparents died because we couldn’t go without a pint for a few weeks? Job for the MPs I reckon.   *Professor Rachel Elliott, University of Manchester ** 39,000 pub with turnover of £23bn. Pre-covid 13,000 pubs have shut between 2001 and 2019. ONS *** Morning Advertiser, publicans’ trade paper  

Well it’s official, bullying is now sanctioned by the government. Not only does an enquiry confirm a minister bullied staff, but there was an attempt to bully the man carrying out the enquiry. Fortunately, he at least has some honour and pride, he stuck to his principles and quit. Strike one. Obviously there was a lame excuse, ‘I wasn’t told I was bullying’ or words to that effect. Maybe they’ve made the mistake of claiming that the minister wasn’t told about her attitude. Though perhaps on this occasion the Tories at the top have bitten off more than they can chew as there is a wrongful dismissal case pending in which this topic will probably be raised. As we all know from Yes Minister, it’s not wise to tangle with top civil servants. The way they operate, there will be diary entries or memos highlighting the occasions when the minister crossed the line and was told about it. Strike two.   What makes it worse is the fact that Tory MPs have now been told to support the perpetrator. Is that more bullying (whips have been up to it for ever)? One might have some sympathy if Boris had given her a bollocking, suspended her for a week or two, but he did nothing. She has apologized though. Good for her. Strike three.   We all know that bullying goes on and who knows how many millions of pounds have been invested in training teachers and long-term campaigns to dig out and eradicate bullying in schools. More money down the drain. You can hear it now, ‘Well Johnny, we know you’ve been bullying your classmates, don’t do it again there’s a good chap. Off you go, pop back to your gang, they’ll look after you.’   Interestingly, ‘We will continue to help teachers tackle bullying, including homophobic bullying. No child should be bullied on account of who their parents are or where they come from’ is a direct quote from the 2019 Conservative manifesto. Obviously, again, you can’t bully in school, but it’s fine in the workplace. What a wonderful example we are setting today’s youth. More government double standards where us plebs have to toe the line while the Cabinet clique can do what they want. Perhaps they should practice what they preach, no, it will never happen.

Theresa May was the last one, I think. She did her best, but when your supposed support is squabbling behind you like a gang of spoilt children, then it’s very difficult for your leadership to be effective. The irony is that while the pro and anti-Brexit voters in the street were supposed to accept the result and move on, the House of Commons never did. Currently, it seems to me that the only time the Conservative Party is ever unified is in the six weeks before an election. However, I digress. It may be an antiquated concept but I believe leaders should look and act like leaders. While a photo-opportunity kissing a baby (oh those good old days) was acceptable and builds a positive image, dangling from a zip wire does not. One might expect a leader to use language that we can all engage with, or appear to be prepared to speak, or have a decent haircut, or be relatively smart. You would not find Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron or even Donald Trump deploying a 17-stone body against a rugby playing 10-year-old Japanese boy and flattening him. You will not find the leaders of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland getting drawn into these shenanigans. Unfortunately, Boris Johnson’s working life is haunted by things that have gone wrong. He presents this classics scholar intellect, but there is no substance. Since his election some things he never could have foreseen have gone against him, but at no time has he exhibited the image that he is in control. The news of the last week almost confirms that he doesn’t have an idea of his own because his partner and advisor and goodness know how many cabinet members are openly promoting their own ideas. Sadly, he is just a front man. This is not an anti-conservative rant. I would like to offer the same destructive criticism of the other two main party leaders, but their presence is only noticeable by its absence. Their appearance is smart, but where are their policies? You can’t score points off each other if you have no clear idea what you would do in the same situation. They could have united with the nursing and teaching unions, with business leaders and come up with credible solutions to immediate problems while considering the Britain we want at the end of it. However, they probably just listened to their advisors.

I confess, I am not a fan of soap operas. I do like a good sitcom though and, in these times of doom and gloom, Boris might not be able to get a lot right with regard to Covid, but he is providing us with plenty of entertainment. Of course, it’s all hearsay and gossip. Until Dom Cummings publishes his memoir, early in the new year I suspect, we won’t know his version of the true story. But in the meantime we can be amused by, as the Sunday Times says, the ‘Three of them in this marriage’, stealing and paraphrasing the quote from Princess Diana. Sadly, you couldn’t make it up. New girl Allegra crying on Boris’ shoulder because Dom allegedly didn’t like her. Dom walking out with his box of tricks and oh so grumpy because his best buddy Lee quit/got the push. Gove sitting at home with his scale model of Number 10 sticking pins into the current incumbents while working out where his furniture will go when he moves in. The Chancellor quietly digging a subterranean passage from Number 11 so that he can pop up behind the glossy black door at the appropriate moment. And we mustn’t forget the conservative MPs, Nietzsche’s slaves or sheep, more goose like in their little gaggles running hither and thither trying to decide which person to believe/follow and give them something to blindly believe in that they can regurgitate to their constituents. Our elected representatives have too much to take in at once, poor souls, as they wrestle with Covid one minute, Brexit the next, consultants being appointed willy nilly without public scrutiny and all of them ‘chums’ of current or past Tories. What a to do? But nor must we forget ‘her indoors’ or more accurately ‘her upstairs’, the third party in the Carrie/Boris/Dom menage. More rumour and innuendo suggest that the puppet master is pulling the strings, appropriately, from the flat above the offices using Whatsapp. What a carry on? (Get the pun?) The sad thing is that many of us take delight in the lunacy of the current United States President while we have our own special brand of British lunacy at a time when clear thought and real leadership would most benefit our little nation.