Coronavirus – Day #37

Much excitement in the UK media today. With the Labour Party pretty much dead in the water thanks to its own internal squabbles, the Tories feel safe to fight amongst themselves. Thus we had the remarkable sight of The Times launching a full-scale attack on Boris Johnson.

For the benefit of foreign readers, a little explanation is in order. The Times, owned by Rupert Murdoch, has always backed Michael Gove for Prime Minister. However, the Tory right, which is very traditionalist, prefers the Telegraph, for whom Bozo is a columnist. Having The Times attack Bozo is therefore possibly a signal that Gove thinks he can make a bid for power while the PM is still indisposed from his bout of virus.

There are other things to bear in mind, though. Gove probably doesn’t have the support of either the party or the country for a coup. What he can do is fire a warning shot across the bows of Acting Prime Minister, Dominic Raab, to let him know that he has to do what Murdoch wants while Bozo is not around. What Murdoch wants, of course, is the end of Lockdown, and a return to the “herd immunity” strategy, because that is seen as being good for the economy (well, good for billionaires).

The coming week will be an interesting time in Westminister.

Not that us ordinary citizens can do much to influence things. We’ll just have to sit tight and hope that a modicum of common sense prevails.

In the meantime I have been working on next week’s radio show, and I have started on a project I promised myself when this all started. I am planning to watch all of the Studio Ghibli movies on Netflix. Today I watched Howl’s Moving Castle. I am now very much hoping that Lockdown lasts long enough for me to watch all of the others.