Dear Reader,

THE race is on between the virus and vaccine — and we can only hope that the vaccine wins. But there’s also a different kind of battle raging, and it’s within the cabinet between the so-called ‘doves’ (Hancock, Patel, Gove), who want a blanket closure of our borders, and the ‘hawks’ (Sunak, Shapps), who are keen to stick with the current, preentry Covid testing rule and mandatory quarantining.

Then there’s the issue of making those coming into the UK spend ten days self-isolating in a hotel, possibly at their own expense.

This isn’t a novel idea. If we were allowed to travel right now to the British Virgin Islands, we would have to remain in a governmentapproved resort for up to a week before moving about at will. Mind you, there’s a big difference between being confined to barracks at, say, Little Dix Bay on BVI’s Virgin Gorda island and a London hotel under leaden skies staffed by security guards paid by the Home Office.

I’m told the hotel option is a ‘flyer’ but, then again, how many of us imagined back in September that we’d all be locked up again in January?

The next row brewing will be about vaccine passports. Groups such as Liberty are against but if it makes the difference between being allowed to travel and staying at home for another few months and contemplating where we would like to be this summer, then I know where I stand. The next couple of weeks will be decisive as we study Professor Whitty’s Downing Street graphs to see which way the red line is moving.

Meanwhile, it’s been a rewarding week for poetry, with Amanda Gorman (pictured) stealing the show at the inauguration of U.S. President Joe Biden. So it’s a good excuse to share some lines from Olive Runner’s popular poem about travel: ‘Then let me go! — I care not

whither My feet may lead, for my

spirit shall be Free as the brook that

flows to the river, Free as the river that

flows to the sea.’