NOW BRITAIN HAS WON THE VACCINE BATTLE, PERHAPS IT IS TIME TO SHARE THE SPOILS OF WAR

VERY PREDICTABLY the war of words against London by Paris and some of the others in the EU over the Covid vaccine issue boils down to what it always was – a bureaucratic cock-up, but theirs, not ours.

From last summer it was clear that with brilliant scientific minds beavering away, the Covid code would eventually be broken and a vaccine discovered. There was a good chance that those minds would turn out to be British and that was what London banked on. And so it transpired.

The first two off the block were from the

Americans at Pfizer and the British at AstraZeneca. Both passed all the reliability tests without demur. Although AstraZeneca was a fortnight later it was the one the British government went for – and quite right too.

But the key to the present war of words was that for once the British bureaucrats did not dither, placing a huge order with Oxford well in time. The Brussels jobsworths delayed and not unnaturally were second in the queue. That was their fault, not ours. As soon as AstraZeneca was delivered the British authorities were able to start vaccinating citizens so in terms of numbers we simply leapt ahead.

Then Brussels threw a tantrum, presuming that, as in the old days, they could simply order us to redirect millions of doses across the Channel. Our response sounded like a whoopee cushion. Not amused in either Brussels or Paris. Rude words, attempts to trash the efficacy of the British jab. But outside the EU we are now free to administer our own invention to our own people, so that is exactly what we are doing. It will all die down. But what is the point of this joyous British triumph if the vaccinated British like the CO and me are simply sent back to lockdown to satisfy the idiots of the Sage committee who got the modelling so utterly wrong last spring?

And finally, as we now have a burgeoning surplus, it would be a nice idea if our PM offered the Emerald Isle a million jabs as a gift. That should raise a few noggins of poteen in the direction of Old Blighty.