It’s freedom day. On 24 February, as all Covid-19 restrictions end in England, would New Statesman readers please now raise their eyes from the unfortunate shenanigans at Westminster, which so obsess our doomster and (may I say) gloomster media? My friends: it’s time to breathe in, stand taller and allow ourselves a shiver of patriotic delight at the world-beating, corona-stomping courage of the British people and their dishevelled but, as it turns out, rather bold government.
Thus Mr Johnson. I precis, but only just. Forward in freedom. Last week “living with Covid” meant coughing and sweating in a back bedroom and hoping someone would leave sandwiches at the door – or, God forbid, wheezing by yourself in a hospital ICU. Now it’s the name of an official government policy. And ministers are right – at some point we are going to have to move on. Given the £2bn monthly cost of testing, and the struggle to return to economic vigour, the pandemic regime had to end.
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