THE cost of Covid, the future of the high street and anti-vaxxers were the topics raised by columnists in the newspapers yesterday.
Richard Littlejohn said he could not begin to get his head around the astronomical sums of money thrown at Covid.
“Doesn’t sound much when you say it quickly, does it? £394 billion. Three hundred and ninety-four billion,” he said. “Depending on who you believe, Britain now has the biggest national debt since the financial crisis of 2008, World War II or the Norman Conquest.”
He said the Chancellor had, until now, been content to max out the credit cards and let the Bank of England print money ‘like a counterfeiting factory on an industrial estate.’
“We may soon discover that the billions created by ‘quantitative easing’ are about as kosher as the moody £20 notes The Syrup used to buy a brand new Roger Moore toupee from Robbie Coltrane’s hairdresser Mr Henry in Minder,” he said.
“How long before the bailiffs move in, repossess all the furniture and leave us sitting on the floor in an empty apartment, like Barry the Bookie?”
He said the financial reality hadn’t hit home with the political classes and said Nicola Sturgeon was still demanding that English taxpayers go ever deeper into debt to finance her ‘blatant bribes designed to persuade the Scots to vote for independence.’
“Where’s the money coming from? Wee Burney doesn’t give a monkey’s,” he said. “Labour’s just as bad. The Opposition would cheerfully shut down the economy for ever, provided the Government keeps doling out the dosh.
“The day of reckoning is coming. The good news is there’s now a vaccine for Covid. Sadly, no one has yet come up with a vaccine for chronic debt. We are all going to pay through higher taxes. Prepare for the sound of squeaking pips.”
The Guardian
Gaby Hinsliff said she wants to be in a crowd, preferably at a party, when all this is over.
“Lately I’ve even been feeling unexpected pangs of nostalgia for the tube at rush hour,” she said. “It’s not the feeling of being rammed into a stranger’s…
