Like most thinking people, I have been securely locked down and isolated over the past few weeks but I am beginning to wonder whether I am doing the right thing or merely pandering to the whims of a rather pathetic clique who profess to run this country.

It seems that people with serious health problems like cancer are not being treated so that the NHS will not ‘implode from over-demand on its limited capacity.’ But the main function of the NHS is surely to save lives? Turning desperate patients away or postponing much needed operations is not saving lives – it is just exchanging one life for another because politicians want to be seen to be in control of the coronabug. It is undoubtedly sad but completely unavoidable that thousands of people die each year from a plethora of life-shortening illnesses. For years we have accepted this. The Covid-19 total is still well below the average annual death rate for all other categories of disease.

And let’s face it, we are continually told by the ‘experts’ that ninety percent of deaths attributed to the Coronabug are of people who are either very old or have serious underlying medical conditions. In other words, the virus has merely hastened a death that would not have been long in coming anyway. 

In these categories of the vulnerable, winter flu has for years carried away tens of thousands and the country never said a word. Nor did the media. One simply accepted that death by disease was part of life.

But with our economy now in serious danger of complete meltdown, what price can be put on a million destroyed small businesses, double that number of unemployed and the tidal wave of depression, suicide and misery that must follow? 

Our politicians, still in slavish obedience to their army of bureaucrats and boffins (who so far have got just about everything wrong) are merely uttering meaningless platitudes and trying to appear in control of the situation. We have the professionals at the Sharp End, the nurses, doctors and front line workers – I am not talking about the desk jockeys! –  who have done and continue to do a wonderful job with inadequate resources. We have hundreds of thousands of volunteers eager to help. We just don’t have the right kit or nearly enough of it. In place of nannying exhortations to ‘save the NHS, save lives’ plastered all over our screens – as well as the repeated instruction to keep washing our hands – the arrival in the right place of several trucks of masks, PPE outfits, test kits and ventilators would be nice. 

We read daily of private sector manufacturers who have offered to switch their production lines to make the needed stuff and tell us that they have not even received a reply from officialdom. This is surely a disgrace.

When this is all over, I pray that the inevitable enquiry will record that Britain’s national bureaucracy and its partner-in-incompetence, the quangos have let us down badly in our hour of need. Bureaucrats and politicians must be held to account and a general clear out of pen pushers is surely vital before the next national emergency hits us – as it surely will.

In a long and pretty varied life I have never seen such fluttering panic among political leaders. Ordinary folk have in the main responded magnificently and done exactly what they have been asked to do, but the wooden incompetents who whitter inanely on our screens each evening are beginning to make the bravest of people wonder why they are bothering to listen.

It seems that the Home Secretary, Priti Patel has been cleared of charges of bullying members of her staff.

I don’t have much time for political heavyweights – as you might have noticed – but so far this good lady has done an excellent job despite being the subject of a what appears to be a concerted smear campaign by her civil servants.

One of her team is even suing her, claiming ‘constructive dismissal’ but the independent inquiry seems have found no evidence to support those bullying claims.

The lefties and the paper shufflers of the civil service seem determined to stop the Government pursuing what seems to be a fairly radical agenda and they are targeting the likes of Ms Patel and the Prime Minister’s special adviser, Dominic Cummings both of whom are inclined to say what they think and don’t much care who they offend.

Yet how much credibility can these civil servants possibly have? Quite frankly, any man who claims to be bullied by a five-foot, elfin woman needs to take a good long look at himself.

I have been a little hard on the desk jockeys today I suppose, but it seems that an infuriatingly complicated application process has been blamed for the failure of the government’s ‘Pick for Britain’ scheme that was supposed to help farmers out of a hole now that their sources of overseas labour have gone.

Out of fifty thousand applications this scheme has recruited only two hundred volunteers.

Applicants claim to have faced a wall of bureaucracy which saw furloughed workers asked to film videos about their team-working skills to secure a manual labour spot picking fruit and vegetables from the ground. One Yorkshire company director turn down two job offers because they were both at farms five-hour drives away – in Scotland and Dorset.

Due to this nonsense with what ought to be a simple process  49,800 applicants have decided against joining the Land Army and only about 6,000 have completed the video interviews for the scheme that was intended to replace the influx of immigrant workers who usually harvest Britain’s summer food crop. 

Let me tell you exactly what the applicants are facing. They begin by applying to join the new Land Army on a government web site and are asked simple questions such as whether they possess a driving licence, how far they are willing to travel and whether they will need accommodation. So far, so good.

Then they are emailed and asked to download a phone app in which they enter up their details all over again. They are then required to film themselves answering seven interview questions such as ‘what motivates you, what experience do you have of team working’ and another on targets and deadlines.

All of these answers have to be uploaded as separate videos before applicants are told whether they have successfully completed the process. They are then offered a number of possible jobs, some of which – as with the company director from Yorkshire – are patently impractical.

Another method is trying to apply using the government’s ‘Pick for Britain’ scheme. There are sixteen different recruitment companies for this lot and applicants are advised to apply to each one individually.

Why damnit and is it any wonder that people are being put off by trying to wade through this sea of red tape for what – let’s face it – is little more than a general labouring job?

As Bunter Johnson’s government comes under mounting criticism for its response to the coronavirus – a response that has left Britain vying with Italy and Spain as the worst-hit countries in Europe – our political lords and masters have defended themselves by saying they are ‘guided by the science.’

The trouble with that is that nobody knows what the science is.

The government’s influential Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies – known by its misleading acronym, SAGE – operates as a secretive black box. Its list of members is secret; its meetings are closed; its recommendations are private; and the minutes of its deliberations are published much later, if at all.

Yet officials invoke SAGE’s name endlessly without ever explaining how it comes up with its advice – or even who these scientists are. We know now that Dominic Cummings and another of Bunter’s secretive and unelected ‘advisers’ have attended meetings but we don’t know why. These two turnips have no scientific background, so what on earth were they doing there?

That lack of transparency about SAGE has become a point of contention as officials struggle to explain why they waited until late March to shift from a somewhat lackadaisical approach to coronabug to the stricter measures adopted by other European countries. Critics say the delay may have worsened a death toll now well past twenty thousand and rising and they fault the government for leaving people in the dark about why it first chose this riskier path.

With all the secrecy, even some of Britain’s top scientists say they don’t know whether they can trust the government’s approach.

“What is the science being followed by the government on coronavirus?” said David King, a former chief scientific adviser to the government. “I don’t know because I don’t know what the advice is and there isn’t the freedom for the scientists to tell the public anyway.”

King, who counselled the Blair creature on the foot-and-mouth disease in 2001, said there was no justification for the government to withhold either the advisory group’s membership or the minutes of its meetings. He is right of course. Doing so, erodes public trust in the establisment, especially given the bewildering twist and turns in its response.

It also raises questions about an academic group that ought to be a point of pride for Britain: the country’s best scientific minds in fields from epidemiology to behavioural science, assembled from cutting-edge laboratories at Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial College and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Wow! Shouldn’t we be told who these pratwinkles are so that we can boast about their collective expertise?

“The names are likely to come out at some stage,” said David Lidington, who served as a deputy to Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May. He warned that the government’s lack of disclosure would only cause more headaches later. “There is the risk that if names leak out after a time it becomes a great shock-horror,” he said, adding that it would be better to make a virtue of transparency.

When he was in government, Lidington did not impress me much with his personality but he certainly has a point. Why should we, the public not be told exactly whose advice is having such a huge impact on all our lives? Not only do we need to know who they are but we should also be told why they occupy such eminent roles. Are they really so wise or well informed?

Why for example, did SAGE recommend less stringent social distancing measures on March 9th when France and Ireland were banning large events and ordering lockdowns and there was ample evidence from Italy of the epidemic’s rapid and lethal spread?

Why in late February did a subgroup of SAGE experts underestimate the percentage of people who would have to be hospitalized as a result of contracting the virus, and why did their models underestimate the speed at which the ruddy bug would spread?

Why did those scientists agree to classify the risk level of the contagion to the public as ‘moderate,’ even after weeks of evidence that it was being transmitted between humans in China?

Why, after Imperial College London published a frightening study on March 16th that projected up to half a million deaths if Britain did not act more aggressively to curb the virus, did Johnson wait another full week to close non-essential shops and order people to stay in their homes?

“Political decisions are often framed as following the best scientific advice,” said Connor Rochford, a physician and former consultant at McKinsey & Co. “but science is nothing more than a normative claim about how we ought to make a decision. These are best-guess estimates.”

Well I am not sure what ‘normative’ means but he surely has a point.

Some say that the frequent references of Bunter J and his aides to the scientists should be a warning sign. If as it will surely be, the government’s handling of the crisis is scrutinized in a future parliamentary inquiry, officials are likely to justify their actions by saying they were listening to the experts.

“It has become a shield for them,” said Devi Sridhar, director of the global health governance program at Edinburgh University. “If things go off, you can always say, ‘Well, it was the experts who told us.’”

In other words, it is the political mantra that seems to sustain so many modern governments – ‘do what you like, then pass the buck to somebody else.’

The government has deflected pressure to identify the group’s members or how many there are by noting that Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser, who chairs the group, regularly appears at evening news conferences. The government also posts brief reports from some of SAGE’s subgroups, and the data that go into its models on the internet.

In a recent letter to Parliament, Vallance said anonymity protected the security of scientists and also shielded them ‘from lobbying and other forms of unwanted influence, which may hinder their ability to give impartial advice.’ He added that people were free to disclose their membership.

What trite nonsense that is. We the general public are the people most affected by the decisions and opinions of these scientists. Surely we deserve to know who they are?

One member who has made himself known is Jeremy Farrar, an infectious disease specialist who is director of Wellcome Trust. He acknowledged the limitations of the system when he recently told the BBC that the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group, which advises SAGE, underestimated the threat of the contagion in March.

“The U.K.,” Farrar added, “is likely to be one of the worst, if not the worst affected countries in Europe.”

A member who has become a household name, and a source of scrutiny for his eye-watering statements is Neil Ferguson, an epidemiologist at Imperial College London. His team of modelers produced the March 16th report that prompted Downing Street to impose the current lockdown.

Ferguson, who collaborates with the World Health Organization and has advised other countries on how to deal with epidemics, later came down himself with symptoms of the virus. In late March, testifying before Parliament from self-isolation in his house, he generated more headlines when he said that Britain could keep its death toll under twenty thousand if it stuck with strict social distancing. This man was wrong with his predictions on SARS, MIRS, Bird Flu and a number of other perceived pandemics yet he is still pontificating and being listened to as though he was the original oracle.

Ferguson did not reply to media requests to discuss his advice to the government or the deliberations of SAGE, but in an interview with The New York Times, he laid out the choices Britain faces. We either had to manage the spread of the virus in a way that minimized deaths but allowed a significant percentage of the population to become infected or tamp down transmission of the virus by imposing a lockdown of the kind the Chinese government did in Wuhan. In the end, he said, there was no choice but to take the latter course. Was he right? I don’t know but it seems to me that he was hedging his bets. ‘Either/or’ statements are hardly likely to ramp up public confidence.

“The U.K. has struggled in the past few weeks in thinking about how to handle this outbreak long term,” Ferguson went on. “We don’t have a clear exit strategy, but we’re going to have to suppress this virus, frankly indefinitely, until we have a vaccine. It’s a difficult position for the world to be in.”

Until mid-March, Ferguson, Vallance and other scientists had appeared receptive to the case for ‘herd immunity.’ Then, confronted with new numbers that projected hospitals would be overwhelmed with patients and that the death toll would skyrocket, they pivoted to a suppression strategy. What is unclear is the role SAGE played in shifting the government’s thinking.

One of the few public documents that gives a glimpse into its deliberations was a report on March 9^th that assessed the potential effect of social distancing measures and said the group recommended ‘a combination of individual home isolation of symptomatic cases, household isolation and social distancing of the over 70s.’

That is far short of the lockdown measures Britain ultimately adopted. It did not, for example, include a ban on large gatherings like concerts and sporting events, in part because behavioural scientists doubted there would be enough compliance with the bans to reduce the spread of the virus.

Nor did it include a recommendation for widespread testing and contact tracing of people who had contracted the virus – a policy this government pursued with some success during the earliest days of the outbreak in Britain.

Among the many mysteries of SAGE is the makeup of the group. Vallance said it includes representatives from more than twenty institutions, with expertise ranging from molecular evolution to microbiology. There are four expert groups, with anywhere from five to forty five members, whose advice is funnelled into SAGE. Some scientists, like Ferguson, serve on multiple panels.

But outside experts questioned whether it has enough representation from fields like public health and logistics. Britain’s lack of masks, gloves and other protective gear has become another weak link in its response. Others have said the scientists suffered from a lack of independence. While Vallance has begun to show some daylight with the government – he recently said SAGE would re-examine the government’s decision not to advise people to wear masks – his regular public appearances next to Bunter, Raab and co have made him look too much like a government apologist rather than an independent adviser.

Some of SAGE’s internal debates play out in competing research studies published by their authors. A few days after Imperial College released its dire projections about the deadliness of the virus, a team at Oxford University published a study that considered a scenario in which more than half the population might already have been infected – a theory that, if valid, would argue for a less draconian response.

Scientists of course, often disagree and change their minds based on new data. That is surely yet another argument for lifting the secrecy veil on this advisory group.

“The idea that a small group of experts can never make a mistake or miss out on any information is never right,” said Sarah Wollaston, a former chairwoman of the House of Commons Health Select Committee. “But you can’t challenge the advice if other experts can’t see what they are looking at.”

I felt that Ms Wollaston’s actions as the MP for Totnes over Brexit were pretty despicable but she surely has a point here. If these scientists are so wise that their advice is affecting all our lives – and not necessarily for the better – surely we should know who they are and what their conclusions might be?

After all, it is our future that they are playing skittles with.

And still the coronabug nonsense continues. We are told that Bunter Johnson will be back at the helm tomorrow and hopefully the current ‘headless chicken’ syndrome will ease a little.

 Let’s take the evening media briefings for a start.I watched a couple of the very early ones, but now I would prefer to watch old comedies on Youtube than sit through an hour and a half of pointless woffle from the Cabinet B team and their chosen ‘experts.’

I suppose it must have seemed a good idea when Bunter first announced the lockdown toward the end of March but now the briefings are totally counter-productive. Yes a grave national – or in this case global – crisis probably needed a grave daily update from Number Ten so that our elected leaders could impress upon us how dire the situation is and put the fear of God into us so that we won’t dare have family gatherings in the garden or wander in the park with other people.

Well I am sure we are all – most of us anyway – duly terrified, but the daily procession of plastic politicians saying the same damned things over and over again is getting us down. Sadly, Bunter J is the only one of the current political crop with enough charisma to keep us not merely listening, but also managing to see a ray of hope in the darkness. His charm keeps us onside but the twonks who have taken his place while he has been fighting the bug are not inspiring by any means.

Mathew Hancock seems overwhelmed, panicked and horribly irritable for a senior politician. Dominic Raab is soothing but tells us absolutely nothing. Meanwhile the smoothly impressive Rishi Sunak seems frustrated and obviously does not fully believe in what he is telling us. As for the others occasionally wheeled out, they look mostly lost – and they are boring as hell – perhaps an inevitability when they are saying the same thing over and over again.

Even when Bunter gets back, can’t they cut the press briefings to two a week so there might actually be something new to tell us? Those interminable graphs might seem a little more relevant if we see them less often. We’d get a better sense of progress and we’d feel less irritated by the same old questions from jaded reporters.

And maybe we’d feel less annoyed with the Public Health England team whose daily appearances reveal infuriating inefficiency. Take the question of the public wearing face masks. There is endless dithering from the ‘experts’ and nervous indecision from ministers.

But of course we should wear masks when we are out and about among other people – shopping for instance. No one’s saying they are a cure for coronabug and; no one is saying we want to wear medical quality masks which would only deprive key workers of protection because due to inefficiency on someone’s part, there are not enough to go around.

Home-made masks pulled over nose and mouth have to be better than nothing and most other countries have made the wearing of them compulsory. Why not Britain damnit? Surely it is a matter of common sense? We are told that masks can slow the spread of the virus. Yet one comment from a professor of health psychology made me angry.

“There is a concern that people may feel too safe in them raising concerns over whether they will practice social distancing and wash their hands properly.”

Who does this silly bat think she’s talking to? Kindergarten children? Sometimes I feel very cross at being patronised by these people.

As I have repeatedly written, Bunter J has yet to prove himself but this is surely his big chance. I think we have all had enough of the B team and their gloomy ‘experts.’

Personally I have had more than enough of the media too. They also parade a string of left-leaning ‘experts’ who have been happy to confidently confirm their prophecies of doom. If their goal was spreading terror across the globe to induce people to relinquish their freedoms and livelihoods – to stave off a threat to their health – they have succeeded. But at what cost and who exactly are these people who have all the answers?

I am sure we all remember the ‘experts’ who were trotted out to tell us that Saddam Hussein definitely possessed weapons of mass destruction, including dangerous chemical weapons, locked and loaded for delivery to Europe. This information was pounced upon by the media and the politicians spreading apprehension and a measure of alarm through Europe and America. The mysterious death of David Kelly, a scientist who dissented from the popular view was a grim reminder of how high the stakes were in the disinformation game. Because most people believed what they read or heard, millions applauded when Bush and the Blair creature took their respective countries to war; dispatched Saddam and caused a regional convulsion that reverberates to this day; a catastrophe that has brought early death and suffering to millions. We now know, no such weapons existed and the whole exercise was based on bogus ‘expert’ information.

And of course there are the ‘experts’ from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, led by the ‘Global Warming’ media darling of the time, Rajendra Pachauri, who assured us that the polar ice-caps were about to disappear along with Polar Bears; that hundreds of islands were about to be submerged due to rising sea-levels, and that the Himalayan glaciers would disappear. Pachauri was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for peddling this claptrap! The few who disagreed were accused by him of ‘voodoo science.’ A core-group of IPCC scientists was caught red-handed deleting data and manipulating graphs that did not fit their models. In the investigation that followed it turned out violations of scientific ethics on the panel had become common. Pachauri resigned following the levelling of allegations of sexual harassment. None of the dire predictions made by him or his fellow experts have come to pass.

With this fresh in mind, why should I believe what the main stream media tell me of the current crop of epidemiologists, scientists and associated experts?

It seems the ‘spike’ or ‘apex’ of the coronabug pandemic keeps being delayed or put off. Does this mean the people of many nations should be on lockdown indefinitely? And if not, what is the actual purpose of the current confinement because this threat is not going to simply disappear.

Patrick Buchanan, a man seldom heard from in media reports has recently pointed out the American political response to the virus threat has resulted in the loss of 1,000 jobs for each person who has died with the virus.

He does not point out that the ‘experts’ at the Centers for Disease Control predicted 1.7 million fatalities in March and have now reduced that figure to 60,000, but even at 60,000 this translates into 60 million people unemployed.

The jury is still out on the severity of this pandemic, but there is little doubt in my mind that the fear that has swept the world, leading to almost certainly the worst depression in history, is based on ‘expert opinion,’ amplified by a rampantly gloomy media corps that might well prove to be wrong.

All they are doing is spreading fear and panic among ordinary people and fear is always dangerous. It holds back balance and judgement and it is far more contagious than any bug.

 

Amid the daily gloom and doom that we are served as ‘news’ in various newspapers and the ubiquitous television, I can’t help wondering how much is real news and how much, mere sensationalism.

For instance, less than three months ago, at least two of the ‘respectable’ broadsheets published photographs of the Victoria Falls without any water falling. These were accompanied by apocalyptic forecasts that the Falls would dry up through global warming and the world would lose its most iconic waterfall.

At the time, I poo-poohed this nonsense in my rant. At the end of the dry season, the Falls always show patches of bare rock which even an amateur photographer can use to illustrate a story of impending doom. However, yesterday – less than three months after the original reports in highly respected British newspapers, the Victoria Falls reached its highest level of flow in a decade. Will those self-same newspapers publish that though? Somehow, I doubt it.

What a pity there are no visitors to admire the Falls in their true glory, but what does this say about the integrity of the Media and how much of their coronabug propaganda can we believe?

My parenting days are long behind me but I can’t help wondering how modern parents are coping with educating their brats at home. It must surely give them a chance to redress some of the liberal nonsense peddled by so many teaching bodies in this politically correct twenty-first century.

Tell the children more about the good things achieved by the British Empire for a change, about the poverty and corruption rampant throughout Africa and about the dangers inherent in the current trend for dissatisfied youngsters to change their gender at will. You know, it is a wonderful opportunity to redress the politically correct balance a little.

Yet there is a crazy woman in Darkest America who is loudly warning the world that home-schooling is dangerous. Professor of Law Elizabeth Bartholet said: “It’s always dangerous to put powerful people in charge of the powerless.”

What nonsense is this now? Parents, ‘powerful’ and their children ‘powerless?’ More often than not nowadays, it is the other way around.

The worthy professor added that home schooling gives parents ‘authoritarian control’ over the kids. Should that not be the case in most parent/offspring relationships? Let’s face it, teachers have been brainwashing children with their own ‘authoritarian control’ for a very long time.

For me, it is somehow comforting to know that even in this crisis, the liberal leftists are still as weirdly round the bend as ever.

Pope Francis has pleaded with the EU for countries to ‘come together’ to fight the coronabug pandemic.

Huh! I can’t see much chance of that Your Popeyship.

The European Union is falling apart at the moment and it is as a direct consequence of this crisis. All the member states have been doing the sensible thing and ignoring everything the EU desk jockeys have had to say.

Germany has introduced very tough anti-immigration measures, for example and the governing body has been roundly criticised for abandoning Spain and Italy.

There are big rows over a joint debt fund to help the worst-hit countries. There are arguments over what phone app should be used to track virus carriers. None of them seem able to agree on anything. One leading European economist said that the EU was in danger of ‘imploding.’ In fact the entire situation is in a state of total chaos.

Ah well – Isn’t there a saying about clouds and silver linings?

This coronabug crisis is certainly bringing out the best and the worst in people. On Friday evening I heard a knock at the front door and when I went out, it was to discover a food parcel, delivered by a young woman called Beanie. She told me that she was delivering similar parcels to the elderly – I am certainly that – and vulnerable – not me I am sure – residents of Princetown.

I have since learned from my next door neighbour that Beanie has nine children of her own and now spends her days pestering Morrisons and the Co Op in Tavistock for supplies that are nearing their sell by dates. She then brings them home and makes up parcels for individual households in her front room. Each parcel is designed to last a week and judging by the contents of ours, it certainly will.

I am sure there are many others like Beanie around the country and they deserve both praise and support.

We hear a great deal about the bravery of front line health care staff in this pandemic and they deserve all the praise they receive. But their courage and dedication is not the same throughout the NHS – the public body so revered by successive governments. For instance, see what happens when you fall sick on a Saturday with anything other than the coronabug.

It happened to me last Saturday. I have recently been put onto a new blood pressure tablet and on Saturday I woke to find my tongue horribly swollen and my face twice its normal size. I am not very pretty at the best of times, but that was scary! At first I felt sure that I must have suffered a stroke during the night, but my Tame Witch immediately looked up the side effects of my new tablets. Prominent among those listed – in fact right at the top of the list – was swelling of the tongue and face.

Now of course I was in a quandary. I didn’t want to clog up the already stretched hospital queues and had no intention of going anywhere near a hospital in any case. In these troubled times, that seems to me akin to a death sentence. There was no reply to a call to my local surgery, merely a recorded message telling me that if I was in real trouble, to dial 999 and if not, to wait until Monday.

A call to the local pharmacy was next but they felt it advisable to get help from a doctor and when told that the surgery was closed, suggested Tavistock Hospital. Another phone call elicited the fact that Tavistock Hospital was also closed for the weekend – what happens to the patients I wonder? So there was nothing more for it than to dial 111, a trial in itself. Getting through took just over half an hour which I suppose is pretty good in the circumstances. I was struggling to speak but the young lady on the other end was very patient and eventually assured me that she would get a doctor to call me within the hour.

It took a little longer than that, but a very calm and professional sounding doctor eventually did ring, went through everything with me again and agreed that it was almost certainly a reaction to the ruddy tablets. He advised me to rest, go back to my old tablets and assured me that he would get my own doctor to ring me on Monday – he hasn’t yet.

So if you do fall sick, make sure it is not over a weekend.

We also hear that the new Nightingale Hospitals are empty with staff ‘twiddling their thumbs’ and that with surgeries virtually closed, GPs are also doing very little. I don’t have great faith in the NHS in general I’m afraid, but surely their highly-paid desk jockeys – they call themselves administrators – can get together and sort out some sort of system whereby duties are shared among all staff, not just an incredibly overworked few.

Then of course there is money. It seems incredible to me that while politicians in South Africa, New Zealand and a few other countries have taken big pay cuts to help with the Covid 19 fight, our lot have awarded themselves a cool ten thousand pound apiece for working from home.

Not only that, but those unelected cretins at the House of Lords are demanding that their daily attendance allowance of three hundred and twenty three pounds is paid out even when they are at home discussing things on video calls. They have even had the gall to claim age discrimination because many of them are elderly. Have these people – most of them already wealthy – no shame at all?

Again in South Africa, three of the richest families including the diamond magnates, the Oppenheimers have made huge donations to the coronabug efforts; in Zimbabwe, millionaire Strive Masiiwa has equipped the Wilkins infectious diseases hospital with everything stuff they need to control the disease and in Georgia, the billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili has donated the equivalent of twenty five and a half million pounds to the fight.

Some footballers and other ‘celebrities’ have made big donations too but billionaires like Richard Branson and Philip Green are demanding that the government bails out their companies. This while millions of people – including my humble self – have lost all their income, certainly for the next few months.

Ninety-nine year old Captain Tom Moore has captured the hearts of the nation with his fund raising efforts and other oldies have followed his example but will that money go anywhere near the front line and those who need it most? I hope so but I have my doubts.

And while so many people are working selflessly for the benefit of others, Victoria Beckham, whose handbag collection alone is said to be worth one and a half million pounds is to claim what will amount to tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money to pay her employees under the governments job retention scheme. She and her husband David – whose talents would appear to be limited to kicking a football and advertising male make up necessities – recently spent a cool hundred thousand quid on the twenty first birthday party for their eldest child Brooklyn. Sell a few of those handbags Vicky Dear!

So while the likes of Beanie here in Princetown and many others around the world are giving their all to help people through the pandemic, others like Branson, Green, the Beckhams and our plastic politicians are milking the public purse for all they are worth.

I makes me rather despair for the human race I’m afraid. I am often told that most people are nice, but I really do prefer my elephants.

I smoked my last cigarette when I was about ten. My Father, who was a fanatical sportsman caught me and gave me a serious thrashing plus a plethora of warnings as to how smoking would affect my fitness.

Years later at the age of eighteen, I was travelling down Africa with my first wife and decided that my youthful looks would hinder my chances of employment in South Africa, our intended destination. I bought a pipe in Lusaka in the hope that it would make me look older and have enjoyed pipe smoking ever since.

Over the past few decades, I have watched in some bemusement as Britain turned against smokers in general but never once have I contemplated giving up my pipe. When times are bad, it gives comfort and even when life is good, it adds to my enjoyment of the day.

I don’t suppose it came as a surprise to anyone that as soon as the Covid-19 crisis broke, the anti-smoking lobby stepped up its campaign against tobacco, warning that smokers were at particular risk. 

Among the first out of the traps was the Health Secretary, Mathew Hancock, who said: ‘It is abundantly clear from the research into previous coronaviruses that smoking makes the impact of a coronavirus worse.’ 

He doesn’t seem to be abundantly clear about anything else to do with this virus damnit! And to hear him sounding so dogmatic about it rather amazed me, particularly as nothing is abundantly clear about Covid-19. Since there has been no mass testing in the UK, we have no idea how many of us are infected with the virus, or how many have recovered from it. We don’t know, with any degree of accuracy, our chances of survival if we get it. We don’t know how many have died because of it, rather than just with it. 

The only thing that seems more certain by the day is that those selfless people among us who are constantly exposed to the virus – front-line health workers, bus drivers and supermarket workers – are more at risk than the rest of us. Mr Hancock should increase his efforts to help them rather than having a go at an increasingly small minority.

It is also far from abundantly clear that smokers are in greater danger than anyone else. On the contrary, as British artist David Hockney suggested in a letter recently, smokers may actually be safer – safer even than those infuriating health fanatics we see jogging around the park, panting and spreading their toxic droplets to anyone unfortunate enough to get in their way. 

I won’t go into the science, because frankly it is way beyond me, but the fact is that several studies conducted all over the world have found that smokers are significantly under-represented among those who have succumbed to coronavirus. In China, where more than a quarter of the population smoke, researchers found that only 6.5 per cent of those hospitalised with Covid-19 were smokers. 

In the U.S. (whose figures are probably more trustworthy) the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention have reported that a mere 1.3 per cent of those who have tested positive for coronavirus are smokers, although 14 per cent of America’s adult population are said to smoke. Various explanations have been offered for this. 

One, popular in the anti-tobacco lobby, is that we smokers smell so revolting that nobody wants to come within half a mile of us, never mind two metres. What rubbish! When I am smoking my pipe, people breathe in deeply and compliment me on my choice of tobacco.

Other ‘experts’ tell us that doctors have either been too busy to ask patients whether or not they smoke, or that sufferers have been too sick to answer the question. 

Meanwhile, scientists struggling for an explanation suggest that nicotine may offer some protection through the way it affects the ‘ACE2 receptors’ in our lungs. I have no idea whether this is correct or not, but it certainly gives me hope. If there’s even a grain of truth in Hockney’s theory, I strongly urge medics to set aside their anti-smoking prejudice and examine precisely how nicotine may act to combat the virus. 

That way they may even come up with the elusive treatment we all yearn for. 

As for me, I have a parcel of Princetown Peach tobacco being delivered today and will carry on puffing away through the lockdown, hoping along with Hockney that in some mysterious way my lovely old pipes may keep me safe from the bug. 

Back in the real world I suppose, we are in lockdown for another three weeks but if the government do have an exit strategy, their nightly Three Horsemen of the Apocalypse aren’t telling the rest of us.

Is this all feasible I wonder or will this additional lockdown prove to be an unnecessary disruption to the lives of more than 60million Britons, piling up future physical, mental and financial problems that will themselves inevitably lead to more deaths than we are saving now? The answer to these questions is undoubtedly ‘Yes.’

Over recent days a large number of scientists have expressed concern that the initial data used by Professor Neil Ferguson and his team at Imperial College London – whose shocking forecast last month of 250,000 UK coronavirus deaths without a draconian lockdown allegedly persuaded Bunter Johnson to impose this quarantine – may have been flawed. ‘This research is being given a kind of religious status, like tablets of stone from the mountain,’ Professor John Ashton, a former regional director of public health for North West England, has warned. In his view, the Government is guilty of relying upon a ‘little clique’ and failing to consult a wider pool of academics.

Professor Carl Heneghan and Dr Tom Jefferson at the University of Oxford’s Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine have suggested that the draconian restrictions are ‘going to bankrupt all of us and our descendants.’

Of course they are and what the current situation boils down to is this: ‘Is economic meltdown a price worth paying to halt or delay what is already amongst us?’

This is the question the Government must now answer. Deaths so far have remained largely limited to the at-risk groups while the entire population has suffered the terrible consequences of total shutdown.

Just yesterday, the Office for National Statistics revealed that one in five coronavirus-related deaths were in the age group of 80 to 84 years. Indeed, in terms of age group, the highest proportion of deaths due to coronavirus were in the 75 to 84-year-old range and that includes me with or without my pipe.

If the massive funding and resources currently being poured into the NHS and into supporting the economy were switched to protecting the most vulnerable group, the crippling future we are currently facing can surely be avoided. The authorities could pursue a policy of effective isolation and mass testing within the vulnerable communities, rigorous testing of all carers and workers, and extensive provision of high-quality critical care where required.

Meanwhile, antibody tests – when they become available and reliable – will show people who have had the infection but who are now immune. This may provide a widening pool of carers as time goes on. I believe that taking a hard line approach, but only in this smaller population could work.

Successfully implemented, coronavirus-related deaths could realistically be limited to a very small number, potentially even fewer than a typical winter flu – and we would save a significant portion of the Job Retention Scheme billions of pounds.

Surely this is just simple common sense or is that too much for politicians to accept?

I was horrified to read a COVID-19 crisis outline threat assessment for Zimbabwe yesterday. The assessment utilises the modelling by Imperial College (London) and predicts that, over the next two hundred and fifty days, the country is likely to record between eight and fourteen thousand infections and between fifteen and thirty three thousand deaths.

Part of the assessment report reads:

1. Context, Assumptions and Consequences. This threat assessment utilizes modelling developed by the Imperial College (London) COVID-19 Response Team headed by Professor Neil Ferguson (and released on 26 March 2020) on progression patterns of COVID-19 as applied to Zimbabwe. The study incorporates a range of factors including both general global patterns of progression and specific features applicable to less developed countries.

In the range of scenarios projected in the Imperial College study, over the next 250 days Zimbabwe is anticipated to experience: 

• Between 8 370 104 and 13 981 038 infections; 
• Between 14 943 and 33 073 deaths;
• Requiring between 126 738 and 230 755 hospital beds;
• Including between 19 810 and 43 864 critical care beds.

Although the primary intention of the scenario modelling in this study is to draw attention to the implications of prompt and appropriate intervention strategies, and whilst the study does not explicitly address broader contextual and impact issues, it does note that impact ‘is likely to be most severe in low-income settings where capacity is lowest… As a result, we anticipate that the true burden in low-income settings pursuing mitigation strategies could be substantially higher than reflected in these estimates.’

Whilst all such generic models are based on a series of assumptions, and, in this particular context, the data is approximate, for the purpose of a threat assessment the progression patterns of the disease provide a general indication of the health consequences that are likely to emerge. It is on the basis of this framing of the disease progression and health impact that this outline threat assessment is constructed.

Quite apart from the convoluted officialese used in this paper (why can’t they use simple English damnit?) I was heartily relieved when I remembered that Neil Ferguson and his Imperial College team originally estimated apocalyptic figures for deaths in Britain which he subsequently reduced to about two hundred and fifty thousand and then twenty thousand.

I do fear for my country because there is absolutely no possibility of ‘social distancing’ in Africa society, but any figures issued by this Twonk and his team have to be taken with a pinch of salt. Like most of the ‘experts’ being trundled out by the government every day, he hasn’t really got a clue.

I also read a report this morning on the worldwide death rate in the first three months of this year.

They are

Covid 19                                            :           46,438

Seasonal Flu                                     :           121,993

Malaria                                              :           246,121

Suicide                                               :           269,206

Traffic fatalities                               :           338,715

HIV/AIDS                                          :           421,808

Alcohol                                              :           627,571

Smoking                                            :           1,254,352

Cancer                                               :           2,060730

Hunger                                               :           2,806,314

Abortion                                            :           10,665,130

Makes you think, doesn’t it? These figures came from Lifeline Childrens’ Services and I know nothing about them but the figures sound correct and I am sure they can be verified if anyone has the time.

Back in Zimbabwe, Parliament is considering introducing birth control measures to address the ballooning elephant population in the country.

Zimbabwe has a total of about one hundred thousand elephants which authorities are struggling to manage. Selling the elephants is no longer viable due to the ban imposed by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora – the idiotic CITES.

The suggestion to have birth control measures was made by the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Environment, chaired by Concillia Chinanzvavana after considering a number of issues including the destruction of the environment by elephants. Part of the committee’s report reads:

Contraception is a method which can be used to control the explosive growth of the elephant population…

Contraception can slow down or stop an elephant population’s growth rate, though it does not actually reduce the number of elephants in already overpopulated areas such as Hwange National Park. Community leaders in Hwange are also complaining that they are not benefitting from wildlife proceeds.

Zimbabwe used to sell elephants to other countries including China and that was banned following protests by animal rights activists after reports of animal abuse.

Well, I can assure these esteemed politicians that birth control measures of various types have been tried on elephants through most of Southern Africa and are either prohibitively costly or just don’t work.

A far better scheme would be to apply birth control measures to the ever increasing human population in Zimbabwe. For all my scepticism about the Covid 19 bug, I am sure it is Nature’s way of trying to control the spread of humanity. If some control is not forced on people, the world will soon have a population of ten billion people.

There is not enough space for such a population and it seems inevitable that they will kill everything off before succumbing to starvation themselves.

And on that gloomy note, I am going outside to enjoy the sunshine – while I can!

I don’t watch much television but the other evening I saw Matthew Hancock, the Secretary of State for Health, threatening to ban outdoor exercise if people continued to break ‘social distancing’ rules. From a Government that claims to be preserving life and health, this threat was literally bonkers. 

Banning exercise for any length of time will lead to the deaths and illness of many thousands of currently healthy, older people who know that exercise is vital to their physical and mental wellbeing and let’s face it, exercise can easily be taken while maintaining the required distance from others. 

The threat was a dictatorial one, of collective punishment of all for the wrongdoing of others. In itself it was illegal under Article 33 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions. A foreign occupier would not be allowed to threaten us all like this. 

Mr Hancock also said it was ‘quite extraordinary’ that some people had spent the weekend sunbathing in public places despite it being against Government guidance. Getting into his stride, he urged people not to sit down even for a minute on a park bench, saying those who disobeyed the rules were putting their own and others’ lives at risk.

Where does he get this tommytwaddle from damnit?! Two people sitting quietly on a bench are not putting anyone in danger. The words of Ministers like Hancock and the words and actions of the police show a pointlessly bureaucratic side to these measures – the attempted ban on Easter egg purchases, the sunbathing squad, alleged arrests of people for buying wine and crisps, the arrogantly overbearing threat by a police chief to search the baskets of shoppers. 

Provided the people doing these things are not breaking the distancing rules, why are they wrong? 

Sunbathing, for instance, probably reduces the risk of infection, and if people keep a proper distance apart, what on earth is wrong with it? Why shouldn’t someone sit on a park bench?

Mr Hancock said: ‘I say this to the small minority of people who are breaking the rules or pushing the boundaries: you are risking your own life and the lives of others and you’re making it harder for us all.’

This is bullying cant and unedifying from a senior politician. Personally I try hard to follow the Government’s rule on social distancing. I don’t really believe in it, but it is only polite not to offend openly against it.  

Unlike the Government’s wild destruction of the economy, and its attack on personal liberty, it can do no harm to keep your distance from others. It might even do some good, but I am anxious that there is something more going on here. 

The Government are trying to get us to accept a far higher level of state intrusion in our lives than we have ever endured. They are treating us as if we were unruly children. This is despite what to my eyes at least seems a quite extraordinary willingness among the great majority to do as we are asked. 

It has gone to their heads I’m afraid. The politicians who lecture us each evening need to calm down, for the sake of us all. We are not children and this is not some 1950s prep school ruled by the swish of the cane. Calm down Mr Hancock. You do not know it all.

Don’t you find it a wee bit off putting when BBC weather presenters tell us that it is going to be sunny and, in the next breath, warn us to stay at home. Is that really their job? 

Of course, they are doing what they have been told, but when even the weather becomes a public health announcement, we enter slightly worrying new territory. This is nannying going a little too far I’m afraid.

One of the notable things about the coronavirus crisis is how it’s caused politics to go into voluntary self-isolation. When I say ‘politics’, I mean pre-pandemic politics. Remember how we hated it? Each side biting chunks out of the other and nobody resorting to reasoned argument.

They’re only in it for themselves. They’re sleazy. They don’t really care about the people who put them in power. Most of us have said these things. So what’s happened to all that? I suppose Bunter Johnson’s illness was bound to stop the opposition in its tracks, even with a brand new leader. 

Sir Keir Starmer may be a clever lawyer with an eye for detail, but what he dare not risk is being seen to question the ‘national effort’ led by such notables as Mathew Hancock. And he certainly cannot criticise a Prime Minister who has been in intensive care. 

Politics, along with the economy, has been put aside. It is not just that politicians are on their best behaviour, which might be regarded as appropriate in the circumstances. It’s that there is no longer a political forum and that is not right. 

We now live in a parliamentary democracy without a parliament. Instead of politics we have government by a handful of people who cannot even agree among themselves. Take the one major issue that really does need to be questioned – the failure to get a fully-functioning testing regime up and running.

In the bad old days, political discussion on this would have been peppered with opposition accusations that the Tories were determined to privatise the NHS and use the billions they should have spent on protecting the nation to cut taxes rather than give nurses a living wage. 

We are all familiar with that kind of rhetoric and perhaps we are better off without knee-jerk political squabbling. But there are serious questions to be asked and the daily 5pm briefing from Downing Street is a pretty inadequate way of getting answers. 

Again, I seldom watch this daily parade of the self-appointed great and good but when I do, I am often appalled. Take the occasion a couple of days ago when Chancellor Rishi Sunak – supported by his scientific advisers – was able to get away with denying that the chief medical officer Chris Whitty had ever said rigorous testing had been vital in enabling Germany to achieve many fewer deaths. 

But he did damnit – I heard him myself – and Sunak should have been hauled over the coals. People are dying because we have not been testing as we should have. And where is the tough debate about when and how we end the lock down? Yes, I know there are no simple answers, but that is all the more reason for our leaders to be asked the questions. 

I understand that BBC bosses are now warning interviewers not to put ministers under pressure. Why on earth not? If the questioning is relevant and respectful, surely the tougher the better. All this stuff might be justified if we were at war. But we’re not. To talk of the virus as an enemy is to misunderstand the crisis with which we are faced. 

The state will survive. The question is how much it might have changed. The Chinese found a way of dealing with the virus. Nobody questioned it because they did not dare. 

That’s the way it always is under totalitarian rule. Do we really want that in Britain?  

Surely it is time for a modicum of common sense and some serious questioning of our lords and masters. If this lock down goes on much longer and if we are kept in the dark as to how and when it will be eased, far more people will die from associated causes than ever will be killed by the coronabug.

And God only knows what life will be like when we come out of it all.

While the world struggles with the coronabug pandemic, some things just carry on regardless. On 1^st April, authorities in Malaysia seized more than a ton of pangolin scales in Port Klang. This is the biggest shipment of pangolin scales ever found in this particular port and you can bet your life that the scales were destined for China.

Pangolins are not large animals and there are a variety of different species, but even the larger varieties carry around nine hundred scales apiece. These are made from keratin, so weigh very little. How many pangolins will have died to produce six tons of the ruddy things I wonder?

These lovable little creatures are the most trafficked animals in the world with well over a million animals taken from the wild and traded over the past twenty years. I don’t see the trade ending until there are no more pangolins left in the world.

This particular shipment was found hidden beneath sacks of cashew nuts. It was labelled as being only cashews which raised a red flag to the authorities.

“Cashew nuts is a common false declaration for shipments carrying African ivory and pangolin scales,” Elizabeth John, a senior communications officer for the wildlife trade monitoring group TRAFFIC told reporters.

“The exact origin of the pangolin scales is unknown, although they certainly came from Africa, based on the fact that the scales are from a mix of African pangolins,” John said.

 A new report by the Wildlife Justice Commission (WJC) suggests that over half of seized shipments of this sort originate in Nigeria. Yet pangolins are nearing extinction in that country, so it’s more likely that the pangolins come from neighbouring areas, with Nigeria possibly still acting as a trading hub. Traders are also known to frequently change their routes, which makes tracing a shipments origins extremely difficult.

So the traffickers are stupid when it comes to labelling their shipments, but that is little consolation for the pangolins I’m afraid. The evil trade goes on despite setbacks like this. Only last year, wildlife officials in Malaysia raided a warehouse in Sabah to find thousands of pangolins, both dead and alive, as well as nearly a ton of scales, bear paws and flying fox carcasses.

Pangolins are mainly valued for their scales, used in traditional Chinese medicine, even though they’re made from the same substance, keratin, as human fingernails and hair. In some countries, pangolins are also traded for their meat, and their scales are used for decorations in rituals and jewelry.

I ranted a few weeks ago that the pangolin has been identified as a possible source or intermediary host of the bug behind the COVID-19 pandemic, although this has not been confirmed. Yet the pandemic doesn’t appear to be slowing down the global trade in pangolins, or other wild animals.

I have seen a plethora of conspiracy theories about the pandemic on social media and in the papers over the past few weeks and although I scoffed at first, I really am beginning to wonder. As politicians around the world chase their tails and officials become ever more officious toward ordinary people, the evil giant that is China is quietly getting richer and our precious heritage of wild life is increasingly under threat of extinction.

I am often pretty scathing about African politicians but in South Africa, President Ramaphosa and his merry men have set an example – and hopefully a precedent – to every other politician in the world.

On Thursday, Ramaphosa announced that he, his Deputy President David Mabuza, cabinet ministers and deputy ministers will take a 33% pay cut for three months. The funds will be donated to the Covid-19 Solidarity Fund, the president announced on Thursday night. 

In an address to the country on Thursday night, the president implored other public office bearers and private sector executives to follow suit and boost the government’s efforts to combat the Covid-19 virus. 

Ramaphosa urged private companies to also consider taking pay cuts, with executives donating their salaries to the Solidarity Fund. 

“An essential part of our response to this emergency is the principle of solidarity. From across society, companies and individuals have come forward to provide financial and other assistance.

Yet in Britain, although we are repeatedly told that ‘we are all in this together’ and millions of people in the private sector endure pay cuts and face an ­uncertain future, MPs are actually being paid more money to help them cope with the coronabug crisis.

Quite apart from the 3.1 per cent increase they received at the beginning of April, our elected representatives have also been handed an additional ten thousand smackers for the inconvenience of having to work from home. Ostensibly, it is designed to support key staff, but there’s nothing in the rules to prevent MPs spending it on themselves.

The real question is why they need any more money. In March, every MP got an extra twenty five thousand pounds to cover increased staff costs, taking the total amount for running their offices to over two hundred thousand a year.

Admittedly, working from home may mean they incur higher domestic ­telephone and utility bills, but they’re also saving money while their constituency offices are shut. So why give them another ten grand? What extra equipment do they need to work from home? Surely no one is seriously suggesting that MPs and their staff don’t already own ­computers and printers? Emails cost ­nothing, and neither do most of those fancy new video-conferencing apps.

Millions of people are managing to work from home, using laptops and mobile phones, without ­receiving an extra penny.

So why does Ipsa — the parliamentary body that is supposed to watch the pennies on behalf of the British taxpayer — believe that MPs are a special case and not subject to the same privations and sacrifices as the rest of us?

It’s not as if they’re working their socks off right now. Parliament isn’t sitting and constituency surgeries are off-limits. How are they passing their time in ­lockdown? And how are they going to spend their ten grand windfalls?

During the expenses scandal a few years ago, we marvelled at the audacity of their greed. Since then, the rules governing what they can claim have ­tightened, but never bet against their ingenuity when it comes to defining ‘essential’ and ‘non-essential’ activity.

These people are experts at twisting the system to their own advantage.

I read today that the Biscuit is feeling increasingly isolated and alone in his new life since leaving the Royal Family. I have no sympathy I am afraid.

The problem with Harry and his Yank is that in a very short time, they have become increasingly preposterous. Just listen to them earnestly elaborating on their new charity aims: ‘To do something of meaning, to do something that matters. Archewell is a name that combines an ancient word for strength and action, and another that evokes the deep resources we each must draw upon.’

Are either of them affionados of classical Greek I wonder?

So far the only deep resources Harry and Meghan have drawn upon are Prince Charles’s bank accounts. I mean, who are they trying to fool? The current global health crisis has made many take stock, and to focus on what is really important – family, health, love and safety.

One of the results of this is that it throws an increasingly harsh light on the kind of virtue signalling, woke values and empty words of people like this pair, exposing the vacuity at the heart of their endeavours. ‘We look forward to launching Archewell when the time is right,’ they say. Couldn’t they have waited until the time was right to tell us they were going to wait until the time was right to tell us?

Look around you Sussexes or whatever you call yourselves now. Prime Minister Boris Johnson lies gravely ill in a London hospital. The Queen has just delivered the speech of her life; an inspiring oration that summed up the perilous situation in which we now find ourselves. That speech undoubtedly strengthened the bonds between the monarchy and the nation. It wasn’t an empty gesture that tainted the royals with the cheap values of celebrity and personal ambition.

And if the future begins with Archewell – where does it end? For everything the Biscuit and his Bride do and say now seems to raise more questions than answers. He has always maintained that his abdication from royal life stemmed from a desire to protect his son. If that was the case, why move him from the relative safety and isolation of Vancouver Island to the bustling Covid-19 hotspot of Los Angeles?

And if the couple are so desperately concerned about Archie’s privacy, why name their primary charity after him? Surely this only puts the poor brat further into the public spotlight?

I had hoped that with their leaving, I would not have to keep reading their glib pronouncements in my daily trawl of the newspapers, but they are still there every day, continuing to present themselves as all-encompassing do-gooders, armed with their plethora of causes which include climate change, mental health, domestic violence and refugees?

All very worthy I suppose, but the way they carry on, it’s almost as if no other charity in the world has ever done anything of note.

Why don’t they just quietly start again in America, doing good works if they want to, making a difference and letting their philanthropic profile emerge naturally? I think we all know the answer to that – and it is embroiled in their horrible need for celebrity. The pair of them have never undersold themselves and with Archiewell they are not about to start.

I suppose he is probably a million times better than was Jeremy Corbyn but Keir Starmer, the new leader of the Labour Party is the chap who began the rot at the CPS whereby innocent men accused of sex crimes were presumed guilty on the word of a noted fantasist who now languishes in jail for his lies.

It led to prolonged anguish, loss of livelihood and in some cases wrongful imprisonment.

I can’t help wondering how on earth any male member of the Labour Party, regardless of political sympathy, could possibly have voted for him. Surely it must be a case of collective madness?

I have been incredibly fortunate during the current lockdown for the coronabug. Firstly I was holed up in the picturesque Cotswolds and now I am back on the Moor. I have not had to suffer any real hardship, but so many folk are living out this misery in cramped flats, getting on each other’s nerves, trying to keep boisterous children entertained all day, worrying themselves sick about money. Others have health problems and fear that the NHS may be too overwhelmed to treat them. I have a friend who is bedridden and in serious pain. She was due to have an operation last week but that has been indefinitely postponed and she is now frantic but there is nothing she can do except wait and put up with the pain.

And of course there are a large number of people who have elderly parents in care or nursing homes and are forbidden to see them. How must they feel? How must the parents feel for that matter?

And nobody knows when it will all end.

As we approach the end of the initial three week period, surely the situation requires a dose of common sense and proportionality from the authorities. After all, the general aim is straightforward and that is to prevent people getting too close to each other and spreading the bugs through their proximity.

Why then are the police harrying sunbathers when they are yards away from other people? Why shouldn’t people drive for more than ten minutes, given that in a car you can neither be infected by nor infect anyone? Why shouldn’t people walk on the beach or in lonely places such as the Moors?

As long as people are not congregating, why does any of it matter?

Why should relatives not fashion improvised protective clothing out of disposable material, put on disposable gloves and sit on the other side of the room to visit the sick and elderly?

And if two friends have been in isolation separately for three weeks, why should they not socialise with each other in one of their own homes, travelling by car and not meeting anyone else? We are told that we need to isolate for only two weeks to be safe from passing on the infection so where is the harm in such meetings? That is a question every unwillingly divided family must surely be asking.

I have said it before – I am neither scientist nor clinician yet I feel that I have three quarters of a century worth of common sense built up in my noggin and I really cannot understand the nitty-gritty of this lockdown.