200 over 110

I’m wondering if ear plugs could be added to the list of Personal Protection Equipment (PPE). If everybody had a pair of these they could put them in at 5pm each night—when the No.10 Coronavirus briefing starts—and so help manage their blood pressure. Each time I catch this broadcast I sink further into depression. This government is flailing about and has transformed flailing into an ‘action plan.’ This action plan, like me, wakes up each morning and wonders what day it is. But at least I am not responsible for the nation’s health. The latest life saving ruse is that social care workers will be entitled to get and wear a badge, something like the NHS badge so beloved of former ‘health' secretary Jeremy Hunt who is so clearly responsible for much of the shortage of PPE now prevailing.

​How about a new statutory minimum wage for care workers instead? Let’s start at £15 an hour. Maybe that’s not enough.  How much would Stanley Johnson, the PM’s father be happy to pay his care workers when he succumbs to the inability to wipe his own arse? I imagine he’ll find himself somewhere quite comfortable, where care workers will be paid well above the average (to save his dignity). Yes, I’ve personalised it. But then his son is able to retreat to Chequers for his recovery. I wonder how many spare rooms there are there which could be used for others to recover in too. I have a sneaking suspicion that if Jeremy Corbyn were now in the same situation, all the rooms would be full.