Our unsung heroes

STARMER MUST GET STUCK IN Reward brave workers who keep us going

I WAS off for a bit… have I missed much?

Oh aye. Half the country got flooded, the Labour Party imploded, the Royal Family split up, Brexit, an earthquake in Durham, Storm Dennis…

You can’t turn your back for a minute. And now this. This global pandemic. National crisis. Lockdown.

Every time I read the new rules – stand two metres apart, ration food carefully, limit all human contact. It reminds me of a party I once had.

In fact, I might have accidentally invented social distancing around 1996.

How are you finding it? People have their own coping strategies for being locked up. I’m running out of Netflix, am stuck on a jigsaw and there are only a limited number of things you can arrange in alphabetical order.

The supermarkets still haven’t calmed down either. I can’t face a Black Friday-type scuffle every time I want to nip out for Jaffa Cakes.

But these rules, and the changes to our way of life, look more important every time you open a newspaper.

It is a nuisance, all this, but it pales into insignificance as we learn daily about families who have lost loved ones.

We are in this for the long-haul and it will get tougher as the weeks go by.

But there are bright spots. We’ll come out of this, blinking, into a changed world.

I spoke to various people this week about what they think coming through this crisis will do to us.

Lots of them were optimistic. If we didn’t need reminding, the NHS is a jewel. And the people who work for it are among the most dedicated you can

AS Jeremy Corbyn cycles off into the sunset, Keir Starmer is putting the finishing touches to his newlook shadow cabinet line-up.

The new Labour leader has an interesting few months coming up. Because although the country is preoccupied with the pandemic at the moment, politics will snap find. We’ll have to look after them properly when this is done. Proper thanks, proper money, proper kit.

Then there’s the environment. There’s less traffic, the air is cleaner and wildlife is starting to recover.

In London, like everywhere else, you can see the difference straight away.

I’ve not been to Berkeley Square (non-essential travel ban) but I reckon it would not be beyond the realms that there might be the odd nightingale knocking about.

And us. It can’t help but change us. back into action pretty quickly. Mr Starmer is exactly the right man for the inevitable inquest into the handling of the crisis.

Anyone who watched his performance during the Brexit debates knows he will be eager to hold Boris to account on the minutiae of the Covid emergency.

Someone sent me figures showing that more people are worried about the health of the wider community than they are about their own well-being.

But generally we just want people to obey these rules, get through it, then have a think about what kind of world we want to live in.

This is not the time for the inquiry, but there are going to be lots of questions about how this was handled.

One thing we do know right now, though. Billionaires are not coming out of this great. The same people who

But Brexit still has potential to cause trouble for the new leader.

Mr Corbyn suffered from a lack of clear strategy and messaging and that cost him dearly.

It’s vital – not just for the Labour Party – that the Opposition has well-thought positions on the things that matter to people most. shelter their taxes offshore are asking the Government to bail them out.

We should have a word when this is all over and maybe confiscate the odd private island.

In the meantime, we should work out how to reward those people who are quietly working away, keeping the whole thing going. Cleaners, delivery drivers, shelf-stackers. Doctors, nurses, police officers.

Fair pay would be a good start. But after all they’ve done for us, that’s all fair pay would be. A good