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  Anita   Anand ( 00:00 ): Let’s start with the news of the Indian variant, the announcement that we've got to go carefully at five o'clock yesterday, Michael Cashman. You're our first caller on this. What did you make of it all? Mike Cashman   ( 00:11 ): Hallo there Anita, I wish that people who spoke about this on the radio understood the maths. We've had both the prime minister and Niall Ferguson saying it's relatively small numbers - and the Prime Minister actually saying, if we saw exponential growth, then we would have to do something about it. We are seeing exponential growth, now. It's tripling each week is what we've seen, Now the government is wrong to block surge vaccination in Blackburn, Bolton, and so on, because that could have a real impact. And you know, I've heard people say, “Oh well, but the vaccine takes three weeks to take effect”; Anita I'll give you a statistic. If it's tripling every week, then in five weeks, it mult

  The Covid situation is India is a humanitarian tragedy, I hope the UK  can help further. The DEC Coronavirus appeal has been extended to cover India The situation is also, if we needed one, an illustration of what could have been the impact in the UK  of “letting the virus move through the population” , “taking it on the chin”,  and of not locking down while other countries do so, to avoid (in the words of Johnson’s Greenwich speech), going “beyond what is medically rational to the point of doing real and unnecessary economic damage”. There is debate as to whether Johnson shouted “let the bodies pile high in their thousands”  and thereby demonstrated a lack of empathy with the bereaved and a lack of caring as to how many would die. But after three fatal decisions to delay lockdowns, and after his refusal to meet families of the bereaved, there can be little doubt about the lack of empathy, or of his continued  inclination towards an approach that would have led to a disaster whic

  Boris Johnson wants to tweak the Protocol  that he imposed using a bit of sandpapering. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/apr/20/boris-johnson-uk-trying-to-cut-ludicrous-northern-ireland-checks Let us take a historical perspective. A hundred years ago a settlement was imposed that established the border between Northern Ireland and Eire. This resulted in widespread discontent in many communities.. Sandpapering was considered then, with minimal effect. In 1998 after extensive consultation a scheme was devised involving all players which had the broad consent of all communities – much more than any previous arrangement, anyway– and the proof of that pudding is in the subsequent relative peace. In 2019-20 a scheme was devised by Boris Johnson which had very little consent and was imposed on Northern Ireland. History tells us that such a scheme will not last. What about Brexit overall? Over 2016-2020 a scheme to substantially degrade our ability to trade with the EU