For hair-tearing, home-schooling parents, it wasn’t quite a champagne moment, but it was at least cause to uncork a half-decent bottle of reserva. Boris Johnson had just announced plans, barring any snags, to reopen schools in March. On top of that, he was putting aside a £300 million kitty to fund summer schools. A whole … Read more
For Boris Johnson this was his darkest hour. A moment for sombre reflection, as haunting as the sounds of muffled drums and Chopin’s funeral march. The grim news that had broken just moments before – that the death toll from the pandemic had surpassed 100,000 Britons – had left the Prime Minister visibly shaken. His … Read more
Over the past few months, a climate of fear has been brewing at the heart of Government. Behind closed doors in Whitehall and Westminster, ministers are said to be gripped by a sense of panic. But this has nothing to do with the pandemic, or with viral mutations arriving here from the favelas of Rio … Read more
The view across Washington’s National Mall this week is as beautiful as it is poignant. All along the sun-dappled turf, some 200,000 American flags have been arranged with military precision, creating an oasis of tranquillity in a city riven by hatred and fear. At night the flags create a fluttering carpet of many colours stretching … Read more
HENRY DEEDES: We don’t know much about him other than he made stacks at Goldman Sachs, and is pals with Chancellor Rishi Sunak.
Enter The Enforcer. Priti Patel slowly click-clacked into yesterday’s Downing Street press conference, lower jaw out, forearms bared, camera lens fixed with her best ‘let’s be ‘avin’ ya’ glare. She had come to lay down the law. Too many people were flouting lockdown rules. Or, as she put it, ‘breachin’ regulations’. So once again the … Read more
Doe-eyed Rishi Sunak axed the fluffy bunny act: HENRY DEEDES watches as the Chancellor loses his bonhomie By Henry Deedes for the Daily Mail Published: 23:27 GMT, 11 January 2021 | Updated: 00:42 GMT, 12 January 2021 Usually when Rishi Sunak announces he’s adding another couple of noughts to the country’s spiralling debt, he puts … Read more
Parapapaaa! Sound the field trumpets, the cavalry’s arrived. Well, the Army at any rate – and not a moment too soon. Brigadier Phil Prosser of the 3rd Division was introduced at yesterday’s Downing Street press conference as the man in charge of rolling out the vaccine. And thank goodness for that. The Brig certainly inspired … Read more
Whenever the Prime Minister is about to hit us with sticky news he says ‘alas’ a lot. It’s his distress beacon, his warning siren that the Messerschmitts are swooping over the White Cliffs of Dover. During his statement today to the Commons, where MPs had returned to vote on Lockdown Three, he barely stopped uttering … Read more
Well, what a cheery start to the New Year this is proving to be. Another day and another talking-to from Boris Johnson on why, for the third time in less than a year, we are bolting the doors and battening down the hatches. More lockdown means more dreary Downing Street press conferences. You will stay … Read more