Comment With......barry Speker

In the battle of the space race in the 1960s, the challenge between the USA and Russia was characterised as 'Our German scientists are better than your German scientists'. Rather like the playground tussle between schoolboys 'My Dad's bigger than your Dad'.

This has reappeared in today’s cut-throat retail market. John Lewis Partnership is changing it’s 95 year old price promise of being ‘Never Knowingly Undersold’. This can not be sustained in the face of online giants offering goods at lower prices. We await the new motto but this will include a new deal with Amazon or similar, following the end of the Waitrose cooperation with Ocado (now teamed up with M&S). Will John Lewis be boasting ‘Our online conglomerate is bigger than yours’?

Meanwhile the white vans proliferate and clog the suburbs. The close season is usually a time for premier league players to have some rest in Mustique or the Seychelles; to enjoy respite from the media spotlight and intrusive searching social media which tracks them and their WAGs every minute.

The break has been rather different for Manchester United and England defender Harry Maguire. On holiday on the Greek island of Mykonos, he is accused of attacking a police officer and getting into a violent incident. When he flew to Greece he worried that he might have to go into Covid isolation but did not expect to end up being red-carded, sinbinned, de-passported, handcuffed and repatriated; not to mention the wrath of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and the selection problem for England boss Gareth Southgate.

A staycation would have been a wise move Harry – something like Boris Johnson’s walking holiday in Applecross in the Scottish Highlands opposite the Isle of Skye. Only 600 miles from No 10. A place you can keep out of trouble and away from exam fiascos, A-Levels, GCSEs, school reopening and talk of two trillions. Incidentally are ‘trillions’ now part of the national curriculum? The irony is that with GCSEs results, it turns out that NOT being taught for six months, leads to better exams results. So, school IS overrated! Thanks to Henning Wehn for that!

There has been much activity as a result of the public responding to the Government’s sponsored ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ scheme. The £10 a head discount has been a great boon to restaurants struggling to survive. How this fits with the PM’s anti -obesity drive is as yet unclear, but in the meantime we must all do our bit. Get out there and do some big eating. As Shakespeare wrote in Henry V, ‘For Rishi, England and St GORGE’!

Margaret Thatcher was adamant in 1980 that the ‘Lady’s not for Turning’. She would not change her policy on liberalisation of the economy. There would be no U-turn. The present Government is accused of successive U-turns – no shutdown – but then it happens; wait for herd immunity but let’s not; face-masks are dangerous and don’t help, but now they’re compulsory; we need an algorithm and can’t rely on teachers’ predictions, but yes we will, and so on.

Yet this can be a virtue. We all hear of new political leaders being in ‘listening mode’ whilst deciding on what policies should be adopted and announced. Well the Government is certainly listening and, if the clamour is loud enough, then a U-turn there shall be. That’s democracy.

It is a good thing that the non-existent moneytree which Labour believed existed has now been discovered by the Chancellor – the 2 Trillion and still counting. “Talkin’ ’bout my generation”, sang The Who. A generation is a sizeable group usually well recognised. As a baby boomer one of those born between 1945 and 1964 post war, we are used to being categorised as over- privileged and the cause of all economic ills.

But new generations are getting narrower. I was just getting used to identifying the Millenials (born 1980 to 1996) who are followed briskly by Generation Z (born 1996 to 2010) but following this there is now Generation Alpha (born 2010 to 2025). They are known as The Children of Millennials and are predicted to be the best educated, most technically immersed, wealthiest and tech savvy. But will they also be the Covid Generation dealing with the repayment of the trillions?

There is always talk of the silly season, illustrated by very strange cases in the courts – including Meghan suing over quotes from letters she wrote to her father, the bizarre action by Johnny Depp, (the original but perhaps no longer Captain Irate of the Caribbean) and the Amanda Staveley £1.5billion Barclays commission claim (when her time could be spent progressing a deal for the purchase of Newcastle United). The good (?) news is that some lawyers are doing very well.

During a few days on judicial duties in London I could see that despite the talk of so many people working from home, the traffic on the roads is as bad as ever. This is contributed to no doubt by many people staying off public transport. It is worrying to see deserted streets in the centre of Newcastle, with further plans to remove cars and make room for the non-existent hordes of cyclists.

There was a very welcome U-turn by Gateshead Council in reversing the plan to convert the dualcarriage flyover onto the Tyne Bridge into a cycle lane. Sensible people power has prevailed.