LONDON’S Millennium Bridge connecting the busy South Bank with the busier City on Monday, April 27, 2020.
There was not a soul in sight at 7.30pm on my daily Government-sanctioned walk home from the talkRADIO studio.
It was the same scene in the once-bustling theatre district of Covent Garden and as I wandered past the usually-heaving Holborn Station on to Fleet Street, where the pubs are now boarded up and there’s an eerie still in the air made more 28 Days Later-like by the unusually loud seagulls craving food.
Our unrivalled capital city, which survived the great fire, the Blitz, the IRA, al-Qaeda and IS, has been temporarily silenced for the greater good.
So why is it that any time I switch on the internet or social media I’m bombarded with negativity about how the UK — and London in particular — has failed during lockdown?
I’ve had it with this untrue, unfair and frankly offensive narrative being spewed by out-of-touch, Government-hating journalists and publicity-hungry Twitter commentators.
Their only evidence? Harmless pictures showing families sitting down in the middle of a park enjoying an ice cream, folk going for a bike ride on a sunny day and even police officers gathering to clap for the NHS on Westminster Bridge in a show of national unity.
The reality, of course, is that the vast majority of us are respecting the rules, at great personal and financial cost. After days of hysterical commentary about increased car usage, the official slides at the Government briefing this week showed it had actually gone down.
'OUR FIRST GOAL IS ACHIEVED'
Is it any wonder that trust in telly journalists, with their constant gotcha questions of ministers and desire to do down our national effort, is plummeting?
So let me say this in Britain’s biggest newspaper that has maintained the loyalty of our brilliant army of readers with hysteria-free coverage: We have done so well and all deserve to be applauded for our stoic efforts to flatten the curve.
Even at the start of March, nobody could have imagined that the UK would spend six weeks without the Premier League, McDonald’s or nightclubs Let alone losing those joys of our national life at a time when everyone other than key workers had to stay at home.
You’ve missed weddings, births, significant birthdays, important operations and even funerals. That’s why I am so proud of the citizens of this country.
Do not let anyone tell you that the UK didn’t take this evil disease seriously. We did. Unquestionably.
But that doesn’t mean we should now stay silent and accept a continued loss of our freedom and liberties. Our first goal is achieved: We avoided the NHS being overrun.
Demanding answers from our leaders about what’s next and how we reopen our country does not for a single second make you disloyal — it makes you even more of a patriot.
You’re Aloud to sing again, Girls
THE Greatest Dancer has been axed by the BBC.
Which is bad news for star judge Cheryl Tweedy, who doesn’t seem to enjoy the same bankability she did at the height of her X Factor glory days (the term ratings napalm comes to mind).
But good news for Girls Aloud fans like me as every solo flop just makes the reunion even more inevitable.
lIn other exciting girl band news, the Spice Girls are in talks to do another world reunion tour.
I wonder if Posh will join this time around. Or will Victoria Beckham be furloughed by the others?
Sadiq Can't
SADIQ KHAN has done so alarm-ingly little to help Londoners during this crisis – no masks, no sanitisers or PPE on public transport – that it might be time for the London Mayor to consider changing his name to Sadiq Can’t.
Missing the Mac attack
MY love letter to the things I never thought I’d miss living in London . . .
- Nearly getting pushed into the Thames while walking over London Bridge at rush hour after being brutally elbowed by angry City madmen.
- Sitting in those tiny, old- fashioned West End theatre seats where you end up basically on top of a complete stranger next door.
- Jumping on a packed Central line Tube after work on the way to an event and turning up dripping with sweat, much of it someone else’s.
- Battling with the hordes of paralytically drunk partygoers to order a Big Mac at McDonald’s Whitechapel at 4am on a Sunday.
Why did Meg go for Sco?
ONCE upon a time there lived a celebrity journalist called Omid Scobie.
He revelled in the sort of nonsense that used to fill the pages of Star Magazine, one of the UK’s most downmarket celeb titles.
For many years, until very recently, Mr Scobie also flogged story after story to popular newspapers about celebs and the royals, including the Mail on Sunday.
Nothing wrong with that so far. But I’m just surprised that it’s this fellow hack who notoriously tabloid-hating Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, has picked to write her hagiography, I mean, biography of her “horror” couple of years living inside the Royal Family.
But I guess it makes sense in one way – Scobie is used to getting the best from dull PR spin.
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