Opinion Matrix: Divisions, rivalry and obsession
HOW Covid has exacerbated divisions between the Chancellor and the Health Secretary, the risk to the travel sector and lies and obsession were debated by columnists and contributors in the newspapers.
The Daily Mail
Andrew Pierce said there was a bitter battle being waged in the Government between Team Wealth and Team Health.
He pointed out that the Chancellor (Wealth) chose not to attend a meeting earlier this week to discuss an overhaul of lockdown rules.
“Instead, he dispatched a junior minister, John Glen, to repeat his vehement objections to the ‘traffic light system’ of restrictions proposed for 13 million people in the north of England,” he said. “When the meeting ended, Glen told his boss ‘there had been a good and lively discussion’ but no decision had been taken. So it came as a surprise to the Treasury team on Tuesday morning to see headlines and hear news bulletins trumpeting that the Government was pressing ahead with its traffic light system.”
Pierce asked if Matt Hancock had briefed journalists, claiming the traffic light system was a fait accompli.
“Whatever the truth, the rift between Sunak and Hancock is increasingly being felt across the Cabinet,” he said. “It is common knowledge that Sunak has serious reservations about plans to shut down pubs and restaurants in northern England next week – a policy championed by Hancock.”
He said Sunak, 40, ‘had one eye’ on voters in the former Labour heartlands of the north who delivered the 2019 election victory.
“At 42, Matt Hancock is no less ambitious,” he said. “He ran for the Tory leadership last summer but quit after the first round after securing a modest 20 votes.”
According to polls, he said, Sunak has the edge but ‘no one should underestimate the rivalry’.
The Independent
Ali Shah, chief executive of Travelup, said the Government’s mishandling of the travel and tourism sectors throughout the pandemic could hardly have been worse but warned of tougher times ahead.
“As of Saturday, three more countries will lose their travel corridors with the UK, which means very few remain that the
British public can travel to without being bound by restrictions either on arrival, or on their return,” he said. “This is a state of affairs that would have been incomprehensible six months ago, but the reality is that without an upturn in fortunes soon, the entire travel sector is at risk.”
He said hospitality was already teetering on the brink and many businesses were staring into the abyss.
“That there would be casualties of the pandemic is inescapable, but I implore the government to do more to support the sector,” he urged. “Along with business rate
relief, lower rents for high street agents and a “trust account model” for airlines, we also need the urgent reduction or elimination of quarantine measures for those returning to the UK.”
He said airport testing could bring an end to 14 day quarantines and was already in force in 30 countries.
“Ideas like this can bring some life back into the industry and help restore consumer confidence before the sector reaches the point of no return.”
The Daily Express
Frederick Forsyth said we all know death is inevitable and asked why the Government had been able to use it to reduce ‘ a once gutsy and stoical people to a state of wailing terror. ‘
“It is because we have been told ad infinitum that an early death, preventable only if we reduce our lives and our society to permanent misery, stalks us on every hand under the name of Covid,” he said. “But this is junk, becoming more and more provable every day. The official figures simply do not compute. We are being lied to.”
He said there were 20 to 40 diseases that have been with us for generations that can kill. And there are fatal accidents, he added, and suicide and murder.
“So where in this one-to-50 list of death causes does Covid fit?
“No one knows yet I would take a fat wager that it is way down the list.
“But we are not destroying our country for any of the others.
“So why the Covid obsession? “What officialdom and the Mystic Megs it relies upon cannot hide from us for much longer is that though the contagion list is high, the actual death toll in terms of 67 million people, is tiny.”