Time to pay bill, PM

FEELS SO DRUID TO BE ALIVE Boris must not bail as we count cost of Covid

I CAN’T remember who said it first, but there’s no truer test of character than when the bill comes.

We’ve all been there. Restaurant. Group of friends. Nice dinner. The bill gets put on the table and the world splits into two.

The first set of characters want to share the bill. No question. £100 is £20 each and a bit for the tip. Easy. The second set get the calculators out.

That’s when you start to hear things like: “I only had the soup,” “I wasn’t drinking,” or “But I gave you one of my prawns.”

Austerity

Do not – and I say this through experience – order another coffee while you’re waiting or you risk throwing their whole calculation/ negotiation off and starting the whole process again.

Terrible, really. We have a word for them where I’m from: Lancastrians.

Anyway, I mention this because we are at the stage of this process where Boris Johnson and Chancellor Rishi Sunak are desperately scribbling on the back of napkins.

Very early on in this process, one senior Tory told me that Mr Johnson’s greatest fear was that he would have to introduce “Austerity v.2”.

Austerity wasn’t, and this is a huge understatement, particularly popular the first time round.

Between 2010 and 2019, austerity saw the poorest tenth of the UK lose 11 per cent of their income. The

STONEHENGE has announced it will cancel the annual gathering for the summer solstice.

Shame for all the druids – but they will still be able to watch the event on a livestream.

I don’t know if you’ve come across many druids. Nice folk.

Mystical but with a touch of richest tenth lost two per cent. However it works out this time, no one is going to wear that again.

Mr Johnson has already publicly ruled out austerity but he is beginning to crack under lobbying from the Treasury.

The costs are already landing. The bailout for the Tube, for example, will see fares rise above inflation next year, free travel for children suspended and, during peak hours, the disabled and over-60s, too.

Doesn’t bode well for where the axe will fall for the rest of us. People are worried that the public sector might not get the pragmatist about them. I once went to interview one about his religion.

We met on a cold morning in the middle of Cumbria.

He’d worn robes for the photographer, but had jeans on underneath. As I said, pragmatic.

Anyway, he led me to the top the reward it deserves for keeping the country going during this crisis.

According to the Resolution Foundation think-tank, a third of all key workers are on less than £10 an hour. That includes some staff in care homes and on the NHS frontline.

There is going to be huge public demand for them to be properly rewarded when this is over.

When the last Thursday night 8pm saucepan has been banged, there has to be a rise in those pay packets, otherwise what did any of it mean?

Experts agree. Former Treasury Minister David Gauke says it will be politically impossible to target the of the hill where his group met. Not a standing stone in sight.

“Why,” I asked him, “do you meet here? Is it the site of some ancient magic? Is it on a ley line? Do the stars align here?”

“No,” he replied, pointing back down the hill. “It’s near my mum’s house.” public sector. Carsten Jung, from thinktank Institute for Public Policy Research, says plenty of revenue could be raised by taxing the wealthy. Why not give that a go?

Meantime, we need to keep an eye on Mr Johnson. If life were a sitcom, this is the scene in the restaurant where he – having had lobster followed by filet mignon and a couple of tiramisus – tiptoes away from the table.

We hear the distant sound of a bathroom window slamming and the screech of a taxi. The rest of the cast argue over the bill before a pause when someone, maybe played by Nicholas Lyndhurst, says: “Here, where did Boris go?”