THE POSITIVE PROFESSOR

SOCIAL media’s voice of calm Karol Sikora has been signed up by the Daily Express. Readers can now enjoy his soothing advice in these troubled times that have won him hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter. If you need reassuring everything’s going to be all right read Professor Positivity.

IT IS fair to say it has been a bumpy few days for the Government. Clearly, the way the A-level algorithm worked was completely unfair. Scrapping it was the right move.

I set up the medical school at the University of Buckingham and this whole mess has created enormous issues across the country for medical students, not just this year but for the future.

Only students with top grades can get in to do medicine and there simply aren’t enough places at Britain’s 36 medical schools for everyone promised a place. But with a bit of imagination and goodwill it can all be sorted. We desperately need the new generation of doctors.

Politics doesn’t interest me in the slightest. If I want to see childish squabbling, I’ll spend the afternoon with my grandchildren. But one thing I have never understood is the total reluctance to say “I was wrong.”

It is always someone else’s fault. I was always taught that you should take responsibility for your actions, fight your corner but if you’ve screwed up, take it on the chin and say it how it is.

It isn’t just this exam fiasco. There are so many issues rumbling on where the Government has backed itself into a corner and refuses to budge for fear of being accused of weakness.

Looking at the evidence and changing your mind is certainly not a negative. In my view it’s extremely commendable. If we weren’t all so entrenched in our own positions and were genuinely willing to listen, I think the country would be a far better place.

I’ve spent days trying to get an answer out of Grant Shapps on whether asking people to quarantine at home for 14 days is a proportionate move on returning from countries with a pretty similar infection rate to ours. I am yet to receive a response.

It’s a genuine question and I’m sure the minister probably agrees it is too harsh, but the rules of politics don’t allow even the slightest movement, even to take dogs for walks.

Perhaps hoping a politician can admit a mistake is wildly optimistic, even for me.