Dear Ursula
Your biographical notes don’t say whether or not you are a film buff but, if you are, I wonder if you watched that Marx Brothers one where Groucho complains to the waiter that the food on his plate is inedible, and that there isn’t enough of it?
It strikes me that your relationship with the Astra Zeneca vaccine is based on the same logic, and I found myself idly wondering what your meetings on the subject are like at the moment. We had a headmaster at my grim Brighton prep school who would tell us, week after week, that it didn’t matter whether or not we won the various matches we played against our local rivals, so long as we looked to be a team and remembered our manners. We never won any matches, of course, but we had the consolation of feeling deliciously and empoweringly united afterwards. Like you guys. For decorum’s sake, I think that that particular analogy should end there.
Personally, I would like to think that the over-70s in Bratislava and Brindisi will be vaccinated ahead of our own 20 and 30 year olds, whoever is providing the vaccine. It’s a simple question of morality. For the record, I think should be the UK helping to provide it, but I’m not sure that your guys taking every opportunity to trash the product and then threatening a trade war with the country making it is the best way to go about it.
I think we all understand that the last year hasn’t been easy for our leaders, and most of us are profoundly grateful that we aren’t among them. But it is funny how often, when the world teeters on the brink, great figures bubble up to lead us out of the metaphorical desert: Churchill and de Gaulle, for example, Lincoln and Grant, you and Boris Johnson. Boris with his government’s shiny new motto ‘popularis per fectis rusticitatem’ (‘rank populism through great clumsiness’) meets yours: ‘incompitentia livor iungent nos’ (‘incompetence and spite shall unite us’). Whichever side we might have originally been on during our Brexit debate, I don’t think any of us expected, five years later, to still be spoiled with choice as to which one not to support.
We’ll all pull through, and one day we’ll all be friends again. But in the meantime, I’ll say this for you: I certainly never thought I would find myself looking back to the heady days of Cameron and Junker with such affectionate nostalgia. Thank you both at least for that.
Anyway, as Groucho also said: ‘I’m not crazy about reality, but it’s the only place I can get a decent meal.’
It can’t be easy, and I hope you stay well
Best wishes
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