Dear James,

On October 10th 2019, Boris Johnson and Leo Varadkar, the Irish Taoiseach, met at Thornton Manor near Liverpool Airport. Boris offered Varadkar a solution to the Backstop problem in Northern Ireland. Rather than a land border in Ireland, the new border should be in the Irish Sea. Until then Britain had seen such a solution as impossible – or as Mrs May put it - that, ‘no British government could ever contemplate’ such a move. At their meeting, not only was it contemplated, it was done.

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Dear James,

Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial has ended, as predicted, with his acquittal by 57 to 43. Despite the overwhelming evidence that he was the ‘Instigator in Chief’ of the January 6th attack on the seat of American democracy, only seven Republicans in the Senate, refused the clear need to find him guilty. And that is despite each member of the Senate being required to take an oath promising to be ‘impartial jurors’ in such a trial.

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Dear James,

Credit where credit is due. Team Boris has got something right at last. Early in the pandemic, it ordered millions of units of a variety of vaccines before any had proven their efficacy. By last Friday the UK had vaccinated 11% of our population compared with 2.3% in Germany and 1.8% in France. Outside the EU it is 8.5% in the USA and 52% in Israel, the current leader in vaccination. Well done Team Boris! You are for the first time ahead of the curve!

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Dear James,

A year ago, few, even in their worst nightmares, would have foreseen that the UK would reach 100,000 Covid deaths in less than twelve months. Since then, in disbelief, we have watched, numbers climbing exponentially until yesterday they reached that appalling landmark. As a number, it is difficult for those not affected directly, to grasp their meaning. Today however, the television and newspapers are attempting to put it into human terms by profiling particular families. The BBC is running a continuous gallery of victims with short biographies. Yesterday we saw on tv, a 55 year old man explaining to camera

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Dear James,

Yesterday, on a bright, cold January Morning in Washington, America carried out a peaceful transition of power. Donald Trump left the White House at 08.00 and Joe Biden entered it at about 4pm. Just enough time to do a quick clean up, hoover the corridors, steam clean the carpets, clear out the ashtrays and open a few windows. America breathed a sigh of relief. As did much of the free world.

By 6pm another kind of cleaning was happening.

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Dear James,

It was hard to believe. Yesterday, at a new Mass Vaccination Centre in Bristol, Boris stood there, jacketless, his tie tucked into his shirt front and his sleeves rolled up as if preparing for some prankish game of arm wrestling, He was watching a nurse administering the saviour vaccine to a young lady. Perhaps he wanted to remind everyone that it was he who had ordered the vaccine and t hat there is now light at the end of this endless tunnel? Whatever it was, the expression on his face gave it all away. It was empty of substance with his trade-mark impish grin glancing off-camera as if to say to his minders?, “Is this what you want?’

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Dear James,

Yesterday, in a period of five hours, we saw the best and the worst of America. To quote Charles Dickens on the French Revolution, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was he age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair…”

The world watched in horror as, at about 14.00 EST yesterday, the mob moved up the steps of the Capitol in Washington towards a thin line of policemen.

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Dear James,

I seem to have touched a nerve. A rather raw one. But hey ho, aren’t you politicians supposed to have thick skins? Besides, I think I detected a small vulnerability in your rather irritable response to my last message? Nothing wrong with that! It shows there’s a beating heart behind the ‘political personality’!

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Dear James,

Well, what a surprise! Let me say immediately that I do appreciate your finding time in your schedule to reply to me personally after two years of my writing to you. I suppose beggars can’t be choosers and that one personal response out of 188 attempts is not too bad as a return! Anyway, may I take this opportunity to reciprocate and wish you and your family a Happy New Year!.

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Dear James,

Can it get any worse? Yesterday the rest of the world put the UK into a very solitary, solitary confinement. Ports were slammed shut, flights from the UK and into the UK were cancelled, cross-border passengers were banned. Today the M20 down to Dover and Folkestone is blocked by stationary trucks and Manston Airport is filling up fast. In the international press, the New York Times called us ‘Plague Island’ revealing a lot of pent-up Schadenfreude for this sad little island. And it’s coming our way, thick and fast.

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Dear James,

The government went strangely quiet on Sunday. It was supposed to have been the make or break day and yet the day passed without a decision and ended with both sides saying that they would continue talking. They are still talking. There are at least two possible interpretations. Firstly Boris may seriously be trying to explore every avenue before going for no-deal. But the second option is far more interesting. Perhaps he has, at last, looked into the chasm of no-deal and has been terrified by what he sees. In other words, perhaps Boris has panicked!

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Dear James,

Small gestures give away much. Did you see Boris at the Press briefing with European Commission President, Ursula Von der Leyen, after their fruitless last minute talks last Wednesday? As both removed their masks before the press, Boris, sporting a new and, for once, tidy hair cut, immediately and reflexively thrust his fingers through his mop, ruffing it up into standard ‘devil may care Boris’. Here we saw the brand at work. The superficial ‘seductive charm’ of populist leaders as they lead the gullible towards the cliff edge. Boris, the entertainer, the superficial chancer who takes nothing seriously except his own ego, was in his element as he prepared to inflict appalling damage upon our nation and its people. Boris is full of such reflexes that tell us all we need to know about the man.

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Dear James,

The newspapers are calling it a final throw of the dice, a last ditch effort, the endgame. It is none of these things. It is the beginning of years of mutual antagonism between the government of Britain and its nearest neighbours. Boris is facing the ultimate lesson that he cannot have his cake and eat it and he doesn’t like it. Especially when the trading block with which he wishes to have free trade is five times bigger than you and knows that he cannot have freedom to do deals all round the world (the cake) and to have free access to the EU single market (the eating of said ‘cake’) at the same time.

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Dear James,

Oh dear. What a mess! In the week that the Covid-19 death count rose above 50,000 people, Downing Street went mad. Actually it has been mad from the start of this administration. Last week, in an attempt to reset things, two key sociopaths were ejected and your Party breathed a sigh of relief. They claimed and expected Boris to return to ‘normality’. Some hope! Yesterday Boris told his MPs to ‘form a square’ around the Home Secretary, Priti Patel,

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Dear James,

He’s gone. Dominic Cummings, this eminence grise, this deus ex machina, this urban guerrilla embedded at the heart of Boris’s government, has departed with his revolutionary mate, the same way that Steve Bannon, his alter ego in the USA, went last year. Last night at about 11pm, it was announced that Boris had been pushed to do the unthinkable.

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Dear James,

Last Wednesday, the megaphone was turned off. What had seemed impossible for so long has happened. Donald Trump has fallen silent! Into this stunning and momentary ‘noise space’, have erupted the voices of hope and renewal. After four years of ranting and raving, four years of barefaced lies and deceit, four years of bluster, bluffing and name calling, the pursuit of decency and truth as an honourable aim, is being expressed once again. Last Wednesday, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris stood before the American people and the world and smiled. In France, Paris Mayor, Anne Hidalgo, tweeted, ‘Welcome Back America!’.

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Dear James,

Early on Wednesday morning Donald Trump entered the White House Briefing Room and gripped the lectern. The usual energy was gone. He was running on empty. “This is a fraud on the American public,” he muttered. This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win the election.” He was like a tired robot, mouthing the usual platitudes but running down through a rupture in the power lead. Later, before a wall of the stars and stripes,

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Dear James,

Last December Boris sold himself to the nation as ‘not Corbyn’ and won a massive 80-seat majority. The era of Mrs May’s U-turns, climb downs and continuous parliamentary defeats, seemed to be at an end. How wrong that has turned out to be!

On September 21st the government scientific advisory body, SAGE, advised Boris to introduce a two week, ‘firebreak’, circuit breaker to check the rapid rise in the Covid infection rate across the land.

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Dear James,

They say it is darkest just before dawn. For four years we have watched, dumfounded, the humiliation of America by its own President. We have seen the damage that he has done to allies and treaties across the world while he has pandered to the autocrats, state assassins and the hydra headed Russian mafia that infects our globe. This reality TV star has made America into a television soap opera with ever more ridiculous plot lines. But just perhaps, we may be entering the final plot. The one of his own demise?

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