I fear Captain Bojo’s bid to boldly go to the moon is doomed

James T Kirk and co always won in the end, but things may not go so smoothly for the crew running the UK, says Jim Duffy

Roll Up! Roll Up! For 2021... Forget 2020 and the stuff that is going on. You’re currently living in bad dream. You’re Elton John’s Rocket Man drifting in space, comatose and waiting for good news. You’re that airplane flying in a holding pattern awaiting air traffic control to clear you to land. You’re that bingo player sweating on one number, but it just isn’t coming out. So, forget 2020 with its ‘two steps forward, one step back’. The year 2021 will see all your dreams come true. At least that is what we are being told, right?

Covid-19 is about to get zapped, in England at least. Time to get on board and behind Downing Street’s Starfleet Team who will lead you to a prosperous 2021. As I watched bungling Boris this week try his very best to look prime ministerial as he delivered his “moonshot” strategy for mass Covid-19 testing, a range of emotions started to percolate around my head.

The first, of course, always pops up when I see him. That one is contempt as my gut always tells me he is the pied piper taking us all off a Brexit cliff. Then, a swoosh of neurotransmitters buzzed in my head as I listened more. I would not trust this guy to run a cafe never mind a moonshot strategy. And from thereon in I am stuck. My brain is gummed and choked and it stops processing the words emanating from Dominic Cummings’ script. Exactly, Bojo isn’t capable of cre - ating strategy. He just delivers the theatre.

Cummings has gone into stealth mode recently as he creates his “mission control” inside Downing Street. I confess I do like the sound of that as it paints a picture in my noggin of Captain Kirk – William Shatner, no less – of the Starship Enterprise in Star Trek.

Sitting in his big comfy chair, James T Kirk was the archetypal Starfleet leader. I always knew that, when he was at the helm, the Klingons would get malkied.

So having Wee Dom take the hotseat next to Captain Bojo at Starfleet Command makes me feel excited and a little nervous too. Now he can deliver his moonshot. The phasers are set to kill, the shields are up and its warp speed 8. This spaceship is gonna take on Covid-19 in England.

Sitting on the bridge also in Starfleet Command, we have Gavin Williamson. That super, highly intelligent, highly competent communications first officer – or rather the guy who created an omni-shambles at the Education Department. ‘Yes we are, no we’re not. Algorithms are the bee’s knees, er maybe not.’ And this guy is sitting in the seat beside First Officer Cummings?

As you can see, I’m already wavering over how successful this mission will be. But, all is not lost as Captain Bojo has his secret weapon. A man who would be more at home as James Bond 007 than Chief Engineer Sunak.

As the lift door swooshes open and he dances out onto the bridge – with his notes showing – Engineer Sunak is starry-eyed and in awe. He could never have hoped in his wildest dreams at Conservative Starfleet Command training school last year that he would rise up the ranks so quickly. And now he’s an integral part of Captain Bojo’s team. Only one problem though. That pesky First Officer Cummings is glued to the boss’s right-hand side and “Suny” might not get his own way.

And to complete this awesome Starfleet team, we have Lieutenant Priti Patel. The hard-talking navigation officer who did such a ‘fabulous’ job on immigrants crossing the English Channel. Put simply,