This is the lunacy of the Prime Minister’s rushed and ill-thought through proposed measures to combat the new Covid variant. In the past we were instructed to stay out of pubs and bars unless it was a business meeting. Now, we’re told to keep away from our offices, so people are holding their business meetings in pubs and bars.

This, despite many workplaces having taken steps, at considerable expense, to render their premises Covid-safe. They’ve installed Perspex screens, sanitiser stands, moved desks to be more than two metres apart and educated their employees in all the protocols. And guess what? Their staff want to be there, especially the younger ones who share flats and do not have space in which to work at home and who enjoy and want the face-to-face company of their colleagues.

They’d got used to returning to work, life was back to normal, firms were seeing their staff again, a buzz was redeveloping – then, bang, it’s back to square one.

Not only for them, but also for the myriad businesses that depend upon offices being occupied and functioning – all the sandwich bars, florists, taxi services, couriers, cleaners, dry cleaners, the list goes on. And the shops, too, that rely upon bustling streets, full of workers on lunch breaks or on their way to and from their homes. And the theatres and cinemas, and yes the bars and restaurants, that look to office workers for their custom. At a stroke, the Prime Minister has consigned them to desolation and misery.

Of course, there is a danger in commuters crowding on to trains, buses and in London, the underground. But everywhere, there are signs imploring travellers to wear masks, there are repeated PA announcements voicing the same. There is sanitiser aplenty. Apparently, this is not enough – WFH is the order. Which makes a mockery of masks and sanitiser and all the other socially distanced rules in place at stations and on public transport. What are they for? Boris and his scientific advisers say forget them, and work from home.

When Covid first hit, we did not have the masks and the measures. Now we have, and the majority of people abide by them. I ask again, what are they for?

What we’ve got here is fudge, a government that is listening to the science and at the same time is reluctant to impose full sanctions. What we’ve got, in effect, is neither one thing nor the other. Confusion and chaos reign.

Even putting aside the fact that the vaccinated are having to do their utmost to protect those who choose not to be vaccinated (there are the vulnerable who cannot be jabbed, but they’re in the minority and they should be shielded), this seems a crazily haphazard approach. Try as I might to resist it, the image posited by Dominic Cummings of Johnson pushing a trolley and lurching from side to side in a supermarket aisle, only hardens by the day.

It ignores as well that while the NHS must be maintained at all costs, the health service itself is not fit for purpose and was conceived when our population was smaller, lived short lives and there was not available expensive technology and treatments. But in the private polling the political parties conduct regularly, one subject comes top as gripping the British electorate. The NHS is far ahead of anything else. It must be preserved at all costs, in aspic if needs be. It must not be allowed to fail.

What sort of healthcare are we left with, however, when the backlog of vital consultations and procedures grows and grows, when cancer patients cannot get the therapies they so urgently require, and all because our hospital beds may soon be full with those who chose not to be vaccinated? It’s a system, too, that pays little heed to the mental health and wellbeing of the thousands now pushed into loneliness, forbidden from going into work, which provided them with social stimulation.

While this is playing out, our town and city centres resemble ghost towns. Our subsidised public transport systems, too, become eerily abandoned. I live right by a railway line in South West London. During previous lockdowns we were treated to the sight of trains going up and down the track, with just a handful of passengers, often several carriages were completely empty.

I can get the rationale for much of what is occurring. WFH, though, is baffling. It really does not make sense.

Along with the scandals of PPE contracts being awarded to firms that were supplying equipment that didn’t work or was’t required and/or they enjoyed connections with government ministers and the granting of fraudulent payments under the Bounce Back Loan Scheme can be added the extension of largesse on an epic scale to private hospitals. Unlike PPE and Bounce Back, private health continues to reap the benefit and will do so for years to come. 

When the pandemic began, a relative was due to have knee replacement surgery done privately. She was in agony and could not wait any longer for an operation on the NHS. Her private surgeon told her she was lucky; he was able to carry out the procedure ahead of his hospital being seconded by the NHS and all the beds taken.

Later, once lockdown was lifted, she returned for a consultation. She inquired how the outbreak had gone, was the place full of Covid patients? No, he said, not one bed was used. Not only that, but they did not receive any non-Covid NHS patients either. As the state-of-the-art premises stayed empty, the NHS covered all the costs of the hospital, including rent, staffing and interest payments.

In all, the NHS paid private hospitals billions of pounds to buy beds that were hardly touched. In March 2020, the government block-booked all 7,956 beds in England’s 187 private hospitals along with their almost 20,000 staff to help supplement the NHS’s efforts to cope with the unfolding outbreak. 

A study by the Centre for Health and Public Interest (CHPI) has found that on 39 per cent of days between March 2020 and March 2021, private hospitals treated no Covid patients at all and on a further 20 per cent of days they cared for only one person. Overall, they provided only 3,000 of the 3.6m Covid bed days in those 13 months – just 0.08% of the total.

Meanwhile, they did less work under their contract with the NHS than previously. The year before the virus struck, private hospitals undertook 3.6m NHS-funded planned procedures. That dropped to 2m during the first year of the pandemic – a fall of 43 per cent. As my relation found at her private hospital, in some cases it fell away completely.

At the time, NHS England heralded the Covid deal as a way of guaranteeing a boost in healthcare capacity when they feared NHS hospitals would be swamped and unable to cope. Along with the Nightingale hospitals (subsequently also not required), it was seen as an emergency stop-gap. 

NHS executives stressed, though, that Covid patients who needed hospital care would be treated privately – routine operations such as hip and knee replacements would be carried out in the private hospitals. Yet, my relative’s knee surgeon did nothing, he was not called upon to operate on an NHS patient, not at his hospital. 

The reason for the non-take-up should have been obvious: private hospitals have operating theatres and beds, but they rely on NHS staff to moonlight for them, to work for them as freelancers – and the NHS employees could not get away because they were working flat out in the NHS combating Covid.

To add to the sense of wonder at the generosity of it all comes further news: private hospitals received tens of millions in furlough payments. Yes, that’s right, despite having the costs of their hospitals completely paid, they were able to claim furlough money for staff not directly involved in patient care and those who were clinically vulnerable and forced to shield at home. 

Together, says the CHPI, private hospitals obtained £41m in furlough funding between December 2020 and August this year. The think-tank’s calculation is based on official government data. Details of furlough claims prior to December 2020 have not been released. 

As soon as restrictions were eased, the number of patients using private hospitals surged. They soared by 30 per cent between April and June compared with the same months in 2019. About 65,000 people paid for their treatment privately during that three-month period. Yet the private hospitals were continuing to receive furlough cash for some of their employees. 

This, though, is nothing as to what lies ahead. 

In March this year, the private hospitals struck a new £10bn four-year contract with the NHS to treat patients. Currently, there are 5.83m people waiting for treatment on the NHS. The government-spending watchdog, the National Audit Office, warns that total will keep on rising and could reach anywhere between 7m and 12m people by early 2025. 

The Department for Health and Social Care and NHS England are working on an “elective recovery plan” that will detail just how they propose to attack the growing backlog. Key measures are likely to include scrapping follow-up outpatient consultations to free up doctors to do more operations, encouraging people to have operations outside their home area and making greater use of private hospitals. But how many people will simply give up waiting and choose to self-pay to go private? 

It’s quids in for private healthcare every way you look. This, too, is an NHS that even in the absence of the pandemic was struggling. Indeed, ministers blame Covid as having caused the backlog, but back in March 2020 when Covid had not spread, the waiting list of people who ought to be treated within 18 weeks stood at 4.43m people and the target of dealing with 92% of them within the 18 weeks had been missed every year since 2016. 

The NHS was already creaking under the strain of an increased population, of people living longer, expensive new drugs and more complex operations using costly new technology. Then, along came Covid to further worsen its condition. 

Yet, as far as investors in Spire and the private healthcare sector as a whole are concerned, NHS England really is the gift that keeps on giving.

He found himself as the owner alright but pulled every which way. The ground was falling down but he could not persuade the councillors to help fund the cost – even though he said the council could use the facilities when not required for matches, that was not enough. Their attitude was that as a local boy done good, having made a fortune in telecoms in the US, he should pay for the lot. 

Then there were the fans. They were more interested in the performances on the pitch. All they cared about was winning and, in order to achieve that, they wanted him to spend heavily on star names. 

No matter that the club was near to financial ruin when he bought it, that he put in several millions to save it from going under. There is something about football that defies logic. The “beautiful game”, the “people’s game”, causes any semblance of normality and sense to be abandoned. 

The latest initiative is that football in England should have its own state regulator – sorry, “independent” regulator as the governing body rules proscribes against political bias so this will be a watchdog, the membership of which will be determined by a separate panel of experts. It’s the brainchild of a supporters-led review chaired by the MP Tracey Crouch. 

This will be the establishment of a referee able to examine a club’s funding and corporate governance. A “shadow board” of fans would be able to veto key decisions such as changing the club’s colours or selling the stadium. This state regulator by another name would apply a “fitness” test to prospective owners. It would enforce controls over club finances, ensuring a wealthy proprietor did not dip too deeply into their pockets to give an unfair advantage. There would be a stamp duty tax of 10 per cent levied on player transfers, with the money raised being pumped into the lower divisions. 

Already, just writing that lot down engenders a queasy feeling – this is going to be one state, sorry not state, regulator with a very onerous itinerary. When you think Crouch’s committee came up with more than 40 suggestions, you start to become positively nauseous. Usually, you could count on a government with the hue of this one to resist such a push – it was elected on a mandate of pushing back the state and surely that must include the creation of yet another authorising body? 

Let’s not forget, either that despite all the huff and puff and hyperbole surrounding football it is but one sport. If we’re not careful every pastime under the sun will be wanting its own watchdog. By now, the head is swimming as well. 

The excuse is that this is football and somehow different. As I say, the normal rules don’t apply. 

Three recent causes celebres have heightened the clamour for change. One was the insolvencies of Bury and Macclesfield. Cue anger and tears from the fans and from the areas they served – no matter that not sufficient numbers of locals attended their matches to keep them afloat. When they were afloat there was little interest; when they implode, everyone is a die-hard regular. 

In other industries, members are allowed to vanish. Not football. There, a club is forever – market forces that exist elsewhere do not appertain.

Another was the proposed European Super League or ESL. Again, no matter that the mooted venture died an instant death once politicians, media and yes, supporters, intervened to protest. One telling aspect of that sorry episode was that the putative ESL believed Boris Johnson had given his tacit approval to their idea. This would not be surprising since this is a Prime Minister who instinctively opposes interference, who believes in the freedom of the markets and is also not remotely interested in football (he cares about the game with the funny-shaped ball, the one where you can grab it with your hands and not let go and charge your opponents in the name of sport). Yet, because it is football, his usual preferences were abandoned. 

The third is the Saudi takeover of Newcastle United. Such was the uproar you could be forgiven for supposing that this was the first occasion an asset in Britain had fallen into Saudi hands. Not a bit of it – all manner of businesses and properties are owned by people and organisations that quickly route back to Riyadh and the Saudi government. Yet, when they were sold, there was barely a squeak. This is football, though, so the norm is irrelevant. 

Again, no matter that the previous owner was despised by the supporters and that the club was on the block for ages and attracted this one, serious offer. The groundswell says drop the sale and leave Newcastle languishing in the hands of someone the fans did not want and who was not prepared to invest the sums they believed the club needed and demanded. 

Among the suggestions put forward by the fans is for those attending matches to be allowed to drink alcohol in the stands as they watch the game. On other sports, notably rugby and cricket, this is the bane of the authorities’ lives – anyone going to watch England rugby at Twickenham or test cricket cannot fail to notice the drunken, loutish behaviour. One family have gone public with how, when they went to see England play rugby recently the person behind vomited over their six-year-old son. As ever, football sees itself differently. 

Much of the strength of the Premier League is down to its ability to attract the world’s best, most valuable players. The other leagues who form its competition, in Spain, Italy, France, Germany, will be delighted if the English one is subject to a 10 per cent levy on player transfers. Our European rivals will be the principal beneficiaries, not England’s lower divisions. 

What all this amounts to is a wish-list that looks good in theory but in practice will result in chaos, disputes and litigation galore. Fans and the game’s media and political cheerleaders might be applauding now but their handclaps will be replaced by dismay and frustration. Meanwhile, lawyers are rubbing their hands in expectation and not even football can produce another outcome where they’re concerned. 

Originally proposed in 2003 by three regional development agencies, the plan was for a huge increase in housebuilding accompanied by new, improved rail and road links between Oxford and Cambridge, taking in Milton Keynes. This “arc” of science and technology, innovation and entrepreneurial activity will be “best in the field” and it appeals enormously to the Prime Minister. 

It follows, too, the thinking, now endorsed by the Confederation of British Industry, that the way to advance the economy is to focus on “clusters” built around existing centres of excellence. 

In February 2021, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government published a policy paper setting out how the Government would work closely with local councils and partners to develop a plan that will “support long-run sustainable economic growth across the area”; “help to make the area a brilliant place to live, work and travel in – for existing residents and future communities alike”; and “support lasting improvements to the environment, green infrastructure and biodiversity”. 

The document spoke about how the Arc would embrace “a unique business, science and technology ecosystem”. It would take in 10 higher education centres, among them Cranfield, the Open University as well as Oxford and Cambridge.

The Arc, “accounts for 7.1 per cent of England’s economic output and it is home to some of the country’s fastest growing and most innovative places. Cambridge’s rate of patent applications – a key indicator of innovation – is the highest in the UK, at over 12 times the national average. Milton Keynes is the fastest growing city in the country.”

There was mention, too, of the Arc’s contribution to defeating the pandemic. “Work on the COVID-19 vaccine, testing and treatment is the latest example of the Arc’s unique innovation and business environment leading efforts to tackle a global challenge.”

Developing the Arc was “a clear transformational opportunity”. By 2050, said the paper, we could be looking at output across the area growing by up to £163bn per annum and the creation of 1.1m additional jobs. “The Arc’s success is key to the UK’s national prosperity, international competitiveness, and ability to meet the challenges and opportunities we will face as a country over the next century, including climate change and supporting nature recovery, technological change, fighting COVID-19 and preventing future pandemics.”

In September, the Prime Minister wrote the foreword to another policy paper, outlining the national strategy for developing industries devoted to exploring and harnessing space.

Declared Johnson: “The days of the UK space industry idling on the launch pad are over – this government has the Right Stuff, and this strategy marks the start of the countdown.”

The paper emphasised: “We will link local clusters into valuable networks of innovators and investors, showcasing the strengths of the UK space sector and leveraging the Harwell cluster in the Oxford-Cambridge Arc to provide a compelling ‘front door’ for international investors in the heart of the UK’s leading space business hub.”

In the background, away from the boosterism, the newly created Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has been quietly consulting on the Arc. It’s not gone well, the project has not been so positively received, not in its intended form.

The plan was for the building of 1m new homes (if it was watered down or dropped completely, there would be plenty of housebuilders and developers having invested heavily in likely sites and angrily left high and dry) plus two major transport infrastructure projects, the East West Rail link, and the Oxford-Cambridge Expressway road. The latter was due to cost £3.5bn, but it’s already been scrapped by Transport Secretary Grant Shapps as not “cost-effective”. 

East West Rail is intended to join East Anglia with Central, Southern and Western England, avoiding the need to go via London. Part of it takes in the resurrection of the old Varsity Line between Oxford and Cambridge. Reopening the Varsity Line, which closed to passengers in 1968, is going ahead, albeit slowly. It benefits from the government’s preference for trains over cars, and switching road users to rail, something that helped scupper the Oxford Cambridge Expressway.  

It’s not lost on the Government that the city councils at either end of the Arc are not Conservative, neither are the in-between South Oxfordshire and South Cambridgeshire district councils. Far from working with them, there are some Tories who are not so keen to give these bodies a fillip.

Matters are not helped by the fact there is considerable opposition to the Arc from council and other community groups. South Oxfordshire councillors, for instance, argue that where the Arc is concerned, economic growth has been put ahead of local people, that they were not consulted.

They are also playing the “levelling up” card, saying that the Arc does not square with the stated aim of boosting the deprived post-industrial North and Midlands. 

Scepticism is not confined to the opposition parties. Anthony Browne, the Tory MP for South Cambridgeshire, says the construction of so many new homes cannot be underpinned by the existing transport links and utilities. He wrote last month: “Not only do we not have the infrastructure to support more housing, but we also do not have enough of the most fundamental natural resource – water – to support such growth. It will take decades to address the water shortage issues.” Browne continued: “The [Arc] cannot seek to jam homes across our countryside that South Cambridgeshire can no longer support. What does South Cambridgeshire need? Not yet more new housing, but a better quality of life for our current and future residents.”

Do not be surprised if the Arc joins the growing list of big-ticket initiatives that Johnson loved, only to be abandoned completely or much reduced when reason kicked in.

This is a politically dangerous move by the Prime Minister, to scrap the HS2 link to Leeds. For years we’ve been treated to the vision of the high speed, eye-wateringly expensive service from London to Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, as a letter ‘Y’. Now, under the plan being heavily trailed and set to be announced later this week, that right arm is going. Instead, Johnson will call upon all his powers of persuasion to convince Yorkshire that improved local and cross-regional railways will compensate for the loss of the speedier, north-south London connection. Good luck with that. 

What he is effectively saying to the folks east of the Pennines is that they’re not deemed good enough, that Lancashire matters more, that Manchester is more vital than Leeds. That’s how they will see it, whatever he maintains. Manchester gets to level up and they don’t. 

That cuts deep, where resentment simmers at Manchester’s self-promotion, at seeing itself as the country’s Second City in all but name. Compared with Leeds, it’s got the better football, musical heritage, party conference venue and ear of politicians. It’s the self-styled capital of the north, with a mayor dubbed by the media “King of the North”.  Andy Burnham gets his superfast train, Tracy Brabin (who she?) does not. 

Johnson is playing with fire. He still holds great sway across the region for even broaching “levelling up” in the first place. While critics have sniped that he does not know what it entails, that the final bill, if he was to really bring the post-industrial North, Midlands and other parts of the nation up to the same level as London and the South-East, could be in the order of £2trn (the amount Germany spent after unification on the equivalent task of boosting the eastern half so that it bears some resemblance to the west) this cannot be and should not be taken away from him: at least he has raised the imbalance as an issue. 

Too many politicians nationally and locally have failed to address the clear elephant in the room, that while one area was powering ahead, the rest was falling behind. Irritation at London’s pre-eminence became ever more pronounced, as everything was about “London this” or “London that.” The North wanted what they were having, and Johnson listened and said he understood. He spoke their language back to them, probably as the result of focus groups. 

For that, they are immensely grateful. His concern, when others have voiced none, may deliver him a second term. Doubtless, when the time comes, he will be able to point to all manner of initiatives that have occurred on his watch. No matter that some of them may count as trivial in the overall scale of things; he is trying, he is on their side. It is hard to imagine, too, how Labour will tackle this key Tory plank – if they attack Johnson’s levelling up are they against the notion of levelling up, of tens of millions having better lives and prospects (many of whom just happened to be their former voters)? He has stolen their clothes. 

The problem for Johnson is that the task is gigantic and the public coffers, as Rishi Sunak is constantly reminding us, do not extend that far. Ideally, Johnson ought to have scrapped HS2 completely. By the time he became Prime Minister, work was already advanced on the first, London-Birmingham, leg. Besides, in the Johnsonian mind, it was an iconic project, of the sort he craves. Johnson loves his classical history. He’s a Roman emperor, here today, gone tomorrow, reliant-upon-the-electorate leader. And emperors leave legacies. 

He wants to put down markers, to be seen to have made a difference. HS2, conceived under another administration, is his to build and will be a lasting symbol of his reign. The fact it ticks the “green” boxes of driving more people away from cars, adds to the appeal.

The difficulty is that the cost of the entire HS2 scheme is too prohibitive, so something must give, and it’s not all (and he won’t countenance that) it’s Leeds. That may make sense to the number-crunchers and planners in Whitehall; it’s a red line through one half of the ‘Y’ and is easily drawn. Don’t worry Prime Minister, their existing network will be refurbished and made quicker so they should not mind. 

That takes no account of the emotion and symbolism wrapped up in the decision. It also misses the point: if true levelling up is to be achieved, Yorkshire desires – and deserves – whatever Manchester is getting as well as better local services.

Levelling up can’t be one or the other, and this is where Johnson and his advisors are committing a huge error. Levelling up applies to all, that’s how it was sold; it can’t be selective. 

The policy may have delivered Johnson an emphatic election triumph and may yield him a second but it’s also turning into a nightmare. As someone who knows his history, he should also be aware that the east-west, Pennine rivalry once resulted in wars, bloodshed that was only resolved by the two unifying. 

The Wars of the Roses led to the ascendancy of the Tudors and to the English Renaissance. According to the historian John Guy: “England was economically healthier, more expansive, and more optimistic under the Tudors” than at any time since the Roman occupation. That surely should resonate loudly with Johnson. 

“We have an incredible system in the UK where we don’t ask the state to fund our political parties and if we didn’t have the private donations that come through from donors large and small – in my constituency, people donate £25 a year and donors who can provide more, do more – if we didn’t do that, the taxpayer would be funding political activity. I think our UK system is uniquely well-placed to ensure that we get this broad stretch … the unions fund a great deal of the Labour Party’s activity, again that’s from many, many small voices, and then some large ones too.It’s a mix which brings a real depth of voices to our political parties across the piste.”

Trevelyan was speaking after the revelation that being Treasurer of the Conservative Party and donating £3m is a sure-fire way to becoming a peer. 

Over the years, I have found myself wondering what possesses someone who has enjoyed a hugely successful business career to seek to be made treasurer of a political party. I am reminded of having been involved in various school or charity fund-raising causes. The one moment that provokes sitting on hands is when someone is asked to volunteer to be treasurer. It’s the worst job of all, collecting the money, sending out reminders, chasing the late payers, being responsible for totting up the money.

So, in the past, it has crossed my mind as to why City and industrial titans are happy to do the same on a larger scale for the Tories. I assumed, naively, that they brought to the table a nous for figures and contacts, and that while they did not want to get involved in policy matters, they could at least ensure the organisation they supported was in decent financial shape. I knew that some of them gave money themselves and some went on to be made lords. I did not join the dots, though, and did not realise that all would be offered peerages provided they stumped up sufficient dosh. 

Reading the coverage, it fell into place. The £3m club joins the other scandals that have beset our political establishment and weakened it still further in the eyes of the public. This is the part of Trevelyan’s defence that is lost. She talks about bringing “a real depth of voices”, whatever that means, to our political parties while ignoring the loudest screaming: from a public that has lost trust in our politicians. And much of the reason for that despond is the slew of stories about wealthy people buying influence and titles. 

I was in the House of Commons as a reporter during the John Major era and spent much of my time reporting on scandals, beginning with “cash for questions”. It was a moniker that stuck – later we had “cash for honours” and “cash for peerages”. 

Now, decades on, Major is denouncing Boris Johnson’s handling of the Owen Paterson case. While the disclosure about the conveyor belt of treasurers heading to the Lords came too late for Major’s thoughts, it’s part of the same. One is about accepting paid consultancy while being an MP, the other concerns party donors. They’re both aspects of “sleaze”, the word that came to hound Major’s premiership. 

Major’s response back then was to launch a “back to basics” moral crusade, followed by the setting up of the Nolan Committee on Standards in Public Life. 

Today, Major is severely critical of the Government’s initial defence of Paterson, charging: “The striking difference is this: in the 1990s I set up a committee to tackle this sort of behaviour. Over the last few days, we have seen today’s government trying to defend this sort of behaviour. Sleaze is unacceptable, was unacceptable when I was there, and I suffered a great deal of pain and anguish over it. It’s unacceptable today, and it needs to be stopped.”

He’s right about that, but nothing has changed. Major may think he made a difference by setting up a committee but he did not. The electorate realised that, too, by voting Major and his colleagues out of office. 

The problem is just as bad today as it was then. If anything, what has altered is that public esteem for politicians is even lower. Wholesale reform is needed. While that may include tight restrictions on MPs moonlighting, it must embrace state funding of political parties. 

They are becoming ever more reliant on a small pool of major donors. Labour is dependent upon the trade unions and private gifts; the Tories are totally counting on payments from individuals. In the past, the Conservatives have indicated a willingness to accept a cap on individual donations provided money given by the unions is also limited. Attempts to move forward have always stumbled on this issue. 

We’ve long since passed the point where reform on these lines will shift perceptions. The erosion of faith is so complete that only something more radical will suffice. Individual donations should be capped at a level that cannot cause eyebrows to shoot skywards and give the impression there is a funding channel reserved for the rich, that plenty of people could donate to the maximum if they wished, say high four or low five figures. Reluctantly, the bulk of the funding should be provided by the state. 

Of course, some will insist it is an abuse of taxpayers’ money, to finance political parties, but sadly, there is now no longer any alternative. The sum required is small, tens of millions, versus the cost of running Parliament and other elected bodies. 

Far from being a waste, it will be public money well spent. If matters continue along the same path, creating further decay and public disillusion, all that building and refurbishment work at the Palace of Westminster, costing billions, will count for nothing. 

There was the partner at Travers Smith who put his feet up on the desk and asked me if I liked his Chelsea boots. “Italian, handmade.” The clear implication was that I too could own such a pair.

There were the partners at Withers who wondered if I could tell them a joke and “make us laugh”. It turned out they were making the same request to all the men interviewees, but not the women. Already, it seemed, the all-male panel was looking for suitable “one of us” partner material.

There was the partner at Cameron Markby who invited selected women candidates to dinner with him.

Now, Stephenson Harwood is offering electric cars to newly qualified lawyers. They will be able to lease an e-vehicle under a firm scheme. We’re told that the practice, which specialises in maritime and commercial law, devised the arrangement after its chief operating office, Axel Koelsch, realised that “the key drivers for CO2 usage are buildings and transport.” As the firm works with aviation, shipping and rail clients, “to help them keep goods moving in a sustainable way that aligns with COP26 goals, [Koelsch] was looking for a way for everyone to participate.”

Come again? Presumably, Stephenson Harwood is not staffed by lawyers who revel in owning petrol-fuelled sports cars or do the boarding school run in the gas-guzzling 4×4 or think nothing of flying off to somewhere sunny for the weekend or a tropical resort as soon as the schools break up? Their country houses, too, can’t be the ones with wood-burners and pizza ovens. They’re not the folks, either, with heated swimming pools. Oh no.

Funny, because plenty of lawyers fall into this category. Apparently though, at Stephenson Harwood, they’re a breed apart. They help green-mad clients (does shipping include oil tankers, I wonder) and wish to be like them, and do their bit to save the planet, hence a Tesla for anyone who wants one.

To which there can be only one response: a large eruption of methane in the direction of Axel and co. Despite their insistence – and I’ve studied their quote every which way and I still can’t make sense of it – what I suspect this is really about is a marketing ploy, dreaming up a new, eye-catching carrot to be dangled along with other inducements in what is a fiercely competitive employment market.

We’ve already seen the London office of US law firm, Cooley, providing £45,000 for fertility treatment as part of a “family-forming” initiative. Cooley is also paying for adoption costs. Other City law are stumping up for menopause treatments.

Meanwhile, a US firm is paying newly qualified lawyers in its London office £153,000 a year, far more than pay levels for graduates at the major investment banks. Other firms either can’t afford to hand out salaries like that or they don’t want to be seen to be so crudely money minded, so they conjure up something publicity-grabbing and touchy-feely and right on, showing they’re lawyers with consciences, that they care.

You see, I don’t believe City lawyers and their ilk have altered that much. They love their luxuries. The FT has a supplement devoted to the cause, How To Spend It. At one firm, partners keep different designer watches in their top drawer and which they choose depends on the client and what they think impresses them.

They may not stick their hand-made Italian boots on a table, but they continue to wear them and flaunt them, and yes, seek admiring glances.

They may not demand that male recruits tell jokes but ask women how hard it is to reach the top. It may not be a laugh at the interview that seals a partnership but it’s still the wisecrack in the heavily male preserve of the box at Lord’s or golf club bar.

As for the sexual predator, again, they may not be so explicit – #MeToo has seen to that – but let’s not pretend such behaviour no longer exists.

The challenge for the City, for the Stephenson Harwoods, if they wish to be regarded as genuinely ecologically responsible, is to take measures that are deep and meaningful – to insist that clients have a solid green agenda, to offer electric cars to all employees (why should they be made available to the newly-qualified solicitors, are the rest not deemed good enough?), to not take flights back and forth, to give generously (and I mean generously, not token amounts) to environmental endeavours. While they’re at it, too, they can base their hiring process on greater diversity, and recruit and promote according to ability, not whether someone is a “good bloke”.

In the meantime, spare us the gimmicky gestures. No one is convinced.

The ensuing political storm over the misleading of Parliament resulted in the judicial inquiry conducted by Sir Richard Scott, a Lord Justice of Appeal. Finally, his findings were to be made public. We were told that publication would mark a first – the report and support documents would be available on CD-ROM. We sent a bike messenger to Whitehall to get the disks. When we inserted the disks for the documentary evidence into the computer, there was the occasional piece of text, then nothing. Great swathes had been blacked out, redacted, for “security” reasons. I recall sitting in front of a screen and clicking and clicking over mostly blank pages.

In my mind I could see an official, a character like Sir Humphrey Appleby from Yes Minister, chuckling away. They were, literally, having a laugh: proudly raising the bar on transparency, being seen to apply the latest technology, and in fact, disclosing barely anything.

Clark was himself only adding a personal twist to the phrase used by Sir Robert Armstrong, the then Cabinet Secretary, in the earlier Spycatcher legal action who said he was being “economical with the truth” in his evidence aimed at trying and preventing publication of a former MI5 agent’s memoirs.

The reason Scott laboured for so long was that he could not extract from government departments the documents he required. It was not a surprise: the Ministry of Defence had not passed on to Customs and Excise the shift in policy; the security services would not share what they knew with anyone. The Economist commented that “Sir Richard exposed an excessively secretive government machine, riddled with incompetence, slippery with the truth and willing to mislead Parliament.”

In his report, Scott described the nature of government thus: “The main objectives of governments are the implementation of their policies and the discomfiture of opposition; they do not submit with enthusiasm to the restraints of accountability … governments are little disposed to volunteer information that may expose them to criticism … The enforcement of accountability depends largely on the ability of Parliament to prise information from governments which are inclined to be defensively secretive where they are most vulnerable to challenge.”

That defensive secrecy extended to publication of the 1,800-page report and management of the immediate aftermath. Not only were sections heavily redacted but we were sent a “press pack”. It contained only the few positives in the report. For the largely Conservative-supporting media that had not followed the affair closely and had tight deadlines to hit, this was manna from heaven – they put up the selection of quotes and so it appeared as though the government had been cleared. Only proper scrutiny proved this not to be the case – by which time the story had already aired and people were mentally moving on.

Ministers criticised were given advance copies and instructed as to how to defend themselves. The person charged with leading the Opposition response was the late Robin Cook. He was given just two hours to study and digest the million-plus words – he was supervised throughout and not allowed to make copies – ahead of the Commons debate on Scott’s conclusions.

Cook did a brilliant job. Labour, though, was scuppered. Sir John Major, the Prime Minister, announced that a vote “against” the government would effectively be a vote of “no confidence” while a vote “for” would be clearing ministers of any blame. Not surprisingly, Major’s wielding of the baseball bat worked – the government carried the day, albeit by the narrowest of margins: 320 to 319.

It was a squalid episode. Twenty-five years later, we like to suppose this is a very different time, of transparency and openness. That, certainly, is what this government wants us to believe. We’re touchy-feely now; everything is within limits; ministers and officials seemingly put great store by wishing us to know. The current Prime Minister loves to be regarded for his bonhomie, for being on the side of the people, for his straight-talking.

The reason I returned to Scott was the publication of another report, this time by openDemocracy.

Just mention of that name may provoke sneers among readers of a Tory, government-cheering persuasion. This, though, is not a left-leaning document. It’s an examination of this government’s record in preserving secrecy. It shows that just 41 per cent Freedom of Information requests were granted in full – the lowest proportion since records began in 2005. Some 13 per cent received late replies, the highest number since 2009. Worst offenders in both categories, partial and delayed, were the Cabinet Office, Foreign Office and Department for International Trade.

The report details what can only be described as Kafkaesque behaviour – this in sharp contrast to Boris Johnson’s public persona. Last year, for example, the Tory MP, David Davis, asked for details of research carried out by polling companies commissioned by the Cabinet Office and paid for out of taxpayers’ money which may have been used to give the government a “political advantage”. It was on subjects like public attitudes to Brexit and the UK Union. Davis’s request was refused, on the grounds that something relating to policy formulation was exempt. Then, right before the time limit for reply, a new, different reason was given, which was that to provide an answer would take longer than the 24 hours remaining under the Freedom of Information Act. The official watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office, or ICO, said the switch, while “most unsatisfactory” was technically permissible, Davis was kicked back to square one, to begin all over again, some eight months after lodging his plea.

The study describes the working of the “Clearing House”, the Orwellian-sounding unit run by the Cabinet Office, that monitors information requests deemed to carry “high political sensitivity” or of “significant wider interest” from journalists and campaigners. What’s clear is that the unit’s role is hands-on and wide-ranging, drafting departmental replies – including requests for information on the Grenfell tragedy and the infected blood scandal – and contributing to ICO appeals and complaints.

One tactic much favoured by the Johnson administration is “stonewalling” – simply not supplying an answer at all. This has been deployed repeatedly in relation to COVID-19. One researcher wanted copies of invoices to the NHS from private health companies under the contracts struck between the firms and government to use their hospitals during the first wave of the pandemic. His suspicion was that many of the beds were not taken up – that was my impression, also, based on what I’d seen and heard in relation to my local private hospital in South-West London. The NHS blanked him. Between 2016 and 2020 says the ICO, stonewalling was used 116 times by public bodies, on 40 occasions by the NHS.

Even if answers are given, they can be delayed. Government departments repeatedly claim “public interest” as a reason for not replying on time.

Johnson governs by polling and focus groups. They determine his priorities. In which case, he should know that a poll of 2,000-plus people conducted by Savanta ComRes shows that 73 per cent of the public believe government transparency is important for the health of UK democracy. It’s not a left thing: 83 per cent of Tory voters are more likely to believe it is important, compared with 76 per cent of Labour supporters. The suspicion must be that this is one area where, for once, he will not be swayed by public opinion and instead he will choose to continue to nod in the direction of Alan Clark.

All to the good. The level of poison directed against MPs is hideous. And not just MPs – anyone in the public eye, footballers, celebrities, can expect to be trolled. And not just those in the public eye – anyone on social media, anybody, is exposed to online attack. 

Asked whether she would legislate to remove the right to online anonymity, Patel said: “I want us to look at everything and there is work taking place already.

“I spend too much time with communities who have been under attack, who’ve had all sorts of postings put online and it’s a struggle to get those postings taken down. We want to make some big changes on that.”

Currently, the big tech, social media operators are fiercely opposing measures in the government’s draft Online Safety bill requiring them to provide police and security services access to encrypted messages. Patel is mooting going a step further by requiring sites such as Facebook and Twitter to retain details of the identities of people posting material which could then be handed to police investigating crimes.

Patel is receiving widespread support. Following Amess’s killing, Shadow Justice Secretary, David Lammy, released police records showing that abuse and death threats against him had led to 13 crime reports and four intelligence reports since the beginning of last year. And the Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, revealed that he had received a car-bomb threat from a social media account based abroad. Hoyle insisted that the social media companies “need to get their act together”. He said: “We should know who is putting things up on social media, we should know the person behind these fake accounts – offshore accounts being used for threats and intimidation.”

Hoyle added: “Companies have got one chance. If it was up to me, and I was in charge of legislation, I would have done something.”

Diane Abbott, who receives many times more online vitriol than any other MP, has given her support to forcing the tech giants to reveal the identity of those who peddle hate on their platforms. She said that police investigations into racial abuse and threats against her had repeatedly foundered because of social media companies’ insistence on protecting anonymity. She added: “Persons inciting violence and racial hatred online should know that they will no longer have this cover.”

The problem is that the solution being floated by Patel and backed by others, is easier to propose than to implement. Patel is already showing signs of rowing back, now saying restrictions on anonymity would be “proportionate and balanced”. This comes after Shadow Foreign Secretary, Lisa Nandy, warned that such proposals risked catching pro-democracy activists opposing autocratic regimes and whistle-blowers who have legitimate reasons for hiding their identities online. 

“We’ve got to get the balance right, because social media can be an enormous force,” said Nandy. “You’ve got some incredible campaigners – the women of Belarus, the pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, the young people of Afghanistan – they’ve managed to use social media in order to make themselves heard.

“And if you speak to Childline, they’ll say that social media has been a major problem for a lot of young people, but it’s also been a way in which young people can now reach out and get help in a way that they couldn’t when I was a child.”

Nandy does agree, though, there should be “limits” on the use of anonymous accounts and “repercussions for people engaging in what would be criminal behaviour if it happened in person”.

There is another answer, which is easily applied, does not put the onus on the tech companies and still affords protection to those who legitimately must remain anonymous. It is this: that social media users should have a right to verify their identity if they choose to do so, coupled with a right to filter messages they receive so they only get them from verified accounts. It’s simple: there should be a box that social media users can tick saying they will only accept comments from users who have been verified.

Declaration of interest: I am on the advisory board of Clean Up The Internet, which is campaigning for the adoption of this initiative. It’s already been endorsed by the Communications Select Committee in the House of Lords and a growing number of backbench MPs. It’s time for more MPs to throw their weight behind the plan. 

Whistle-blowers and those who have good cause to remain anonymous can still send their messages. Their channels on the internet can stay open: people or news platforms or organisations such as Childline can choose to receive anonymous messages or follow them directly. The short history of the internet so far indicates that if the tech giants are asked to do something, they will kick-up. Their vast lobbying machines will leap into action, arguing it’s not fair, it’s a restriction on their freedom to operate. They will also use – and they are using – the importance of allowing whistle-blowers and other legitimate users anonymity as a reason for not acting. 

It’s not their job, the social media companies maintain, to act as an arbitrator, deciding who should have the right to keep their details secret. They cling to this notion of promoting absolute openness as if it’s an equivalent to upholding a sacred amendment of the US constitution. They do so while neglecting to declare their own conflict of interest – that anonymous accounts, and anonymous abuse, inflate their user numbers and boost their advertising revenues.

Clean Up The Internet’s proposal takes the argument, and the power, away from them. It’s nothing to do with Facebook or Twitter; it’s about the freedom of the individual social media user to decide for themselves who can reply to them. 

It makes perfect sense. MPs can make change happen. Sadly, the death of David Amess should act as a wake-up call. They must act.  

Above the din, he said: “Baldy, I buy Fulham.” I’d no idea what he was talking about and said so. He said he’d bought the South-West London football club. “Baldy, I get Pele, I get George Best.”

After I pointed out that Pele was then 57 years old (it was 1997), which was too old to run around, even for him, and he had no track record as a manager, and that Georgie was an alcoholic, he relented: “Okay, I get someone else.” He did as well, alighting on another superstar, Kevin Keegan, to take charge, and Fulham’s rise out of the lower leagues began.

I was thinking on this after hearing that Newcastle United had finally been sold to a consortium backed by the country’s £700bn sovereign wealth fund.

Doubtless, the new owners have a shopping list of stellar targets to manage Newcastle and to play for the club. For them, football is an accessory, an asset to be coveted, same as super-superyachts (they’ve got those), giant palaces (tick), coveted oil paintings (the Crown Prince who heads the country’s investment fund owns the world’s most expensive artwork, Leonardo’s Salvator Mundi).

Football falls into the same category. There are those who maintain the Saudis are doing it for “sportswashing” reasons – owning a club like Newcastle will gain them PR kudos, similar to putting on major sports events in their country.

I don’t buy this argument. It might be a motivation, but it’s not the main one. What gnaws away at the Saudis is that two of the world’s most successful teams, Manchester City and PSG, belong to Sheikh Mansour, deputy prime minister of the United Arab Emirates and member of the royal family of Abu Dhabi, and to a subsidiary of Qatar’s state wealth fund, respectively.

UAE, Qatar, and now Saudi – that’s what the purchase of the Toon is all about. It’s to do with powerful men who run countries squaring off against each other.

Yes, the new proprietors want to win the Premier League but the first aim will be to beat Manchester City and to finish above them in the league. Likewise, their goal is to secure the European Champions League, but a primary objective will be to defeat City and PSG. If Liverpool or Manchester United, say, are English and European champions, no matter – so long as Newcastle do better than Saudis’ neighbours and rivals.

In that, they are little different from tycoons such as Fayed or Liverpool’s John Henry or the Glazers at Manchester United. They’re not doing it to improve how they’re regarded. There are easier ways of achieving that than football ownership.

I was once asked by a publicity-shy private equity house what it would mean for them if they bought Sainsbury’s. I replied that they would instantly become public property, their earnings, other investments, their houses, wives, children, lifestyles – all would be pored over, repeatedly. Really? They asked. Yes, really, because Sainsbury’s may be a supermarket chain but it is a British institution, a household name, and as such the media, politicians, and general population all believe they have a share in it. For a football club like Newcastle United with a garlanded past, with legendary players and trophies (and a chequered recent history), a stadium bang in the middle of the city centre and the vast Geordie diaspora, the effect is much bigger.

Then there are the away fans, who will take great delight, and already are, in poking fun. Social media is awash with memes and jokes, and we haven’t even got to the matchday chants.

Of course, there will be the expectation that buying Newcastle will lead to a softening of image. But the finger-pointing is not going to die down much, even if they’re victorious. Look at the Glazers – they’re loathed by Manchester United fans and while they’ve now got Ronaldo in their side that has not done much to assuage their critics. If the Glazer family was doing it for public relations purposes, they would not have purchased the club at all or would have got out a long time ago. They do it to make money.

The Saudis do not need the cash. Again, if they wished to make money there are other, more promising routes.

There is no doubt that being seen to possess a Premier League club, one with as substantial a following as Newcastle, does bring a sense of acceptance and community involvement to a nation that is generally regarded as closed and forbidding. But a spectacular act of philanthropy would have gained the same result – with some criticism, sure, but nothing like the week in, week out, name-calling and other abuse that will come with buying Newcastle.

Answer this question: if Dubai and Qatar were not club-owners would Saudi have bought Newcastle?

They’re doing it for one principal reason: to win and in doing so, beating their regional rivals. As an observer, it should be fun to watch. Woe betides the Newcastle manager whose team is thumped home and away by Manchester City or heavily defeated by PSG.

There can only be one winner, and no amount of funding can undo that. 

The huge cache of 11.9m files follows on from previous data dumps which also shone a light on the lengths some people go, and can go, to avoid tax and public disclosure. It does make for fascinating reading and I’ve no doubt if I’d been presented with such a haul, I would have pored over it, same as the numerous journalists did in a substantial joint international effort, extracting every famous name and juicy detail.

Yes, but is it as shocking as proclaimed? There are individual cases, where the person’s access to large means is not immediately obvious. In all, 330 politicians including 35 country leaders are cited. Doubtless, the findings will invite questions and claims of hypocrisy and corruption.

Generally, though, not only have we been here before, with the Panama and Paradise disclosures, but it’s hard to see how Pandora will change anything. It should of course.

We’ve been down this road many times. The fact is there is a vast industry devoted to assisting clients in minimising their dues, to making certain as little as possible reaches the public purse, to keeping their financial affairs secret.

Reading the Pandora coverage, you’re forced to wonder if the authors go round London, New York and the other centres where tax and wealth experts operate, blindfolded. What do they suppose goes on behind that brass plate, why do they think the firm emphasises its discretion and proficiency in setting up trusts? How is it that the places in which there are branches are those that are also well-known as offshore tax shelters?

The former business secretary, Vince Cable, calls tax havens, “sunny places for shady people.” In his Treasure Islands: Tax Havens and the Men who Stole the World, Nicholas Shaxson, a consultant at Tax Justice Network, says: “Offshore connects the criminal underworld with the financial elite, the diplomatic and intelligence establishments with multinational corporations. Offshore drives conflict, shapes our perceptions, creates financial instability and delivers staggering rewards to les grands – to the people who matter. Offshore is how the world of power now works.”

It was a world described by the former head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Antonio Maria Costa, when he posited that four pillars of the international banking system are: drug-money laundering, sanctions busting, tax evasion and arms trafficking. Putting a figure on how much they hide is impossible. But the most recurring statistic, used by the various watchdogs, is north of $20 trillion. One estimate reckons the total is $32 trillion.

Is it any real surprise, then, that now and again, a small fraction of that cash mountain should reach the public domain?

President Obama Barack Obama said of the Panama Papers in 2016: “The problem is that a lot of this stuff is legal, not illegal”. That’s the point – that an entire machinery is whirring away and every so often there is a glitch, and everyone throws their hands in the air, and forgets about it until the next time. Nothing ever changes. Having delegated their journalists to study the dropped material and having devoted acres of space and banner headlines to exposing the contents, that’s where the anger of the various news organisations should be directed.

In 1994, Gordon Brown told an enthusiastic Labour Party conference that he was going to crack down on tax avoidance. There then followed years of Labour rule and little occurring. They were succeeded by the David Cameron-led administration that made similar noises to no effect. There’s been virtually nothing since.

Accountants, lawyers, wealth managers, those whose job it is to do everything they can to bring down tax bills or ensure dealings remain hidden or both, have not seen a fall in demand for their services. Likewise, tax havens are just as prosperous as they ever were. In the case of the former, we continue to license them and regarding the latter, we continue to afford them protection.

One of the worst offenders highlighted in the Pandora pile, after previously featuring heavily in the Panama Papers, is the British Virgin Islands. The BVI is ours, we oversee the territory; similarly, Cayman, Channel Islands, Bermuda, Isle of Man. Their trade is screwing the Exchequer, yet in the building adjacent to the Treasury, there are ministers and civil servants in the Foreign & Commonwealth Office charged with guaranteeing their security and stability.

What that means is that these and other dependencies are allowed to ply their wares. They promote themselves as tourist destinations and occasionally they will make noises about being more open and transparent but the reality is that they are just immersed in peddling confidentiality as they ever were – to do otherwise would see them go out of business and cause a massive headache for their government minders and ironically, make them a burden on the British taxpayer.

In some jurisdictions, London itself is seen as a low tax, offshore bolthole, one that affords a nice line in anonymity. We’ve gone out of our way to attract overseas wealth, affording non-domicile status to many. We’ve sat back and watched as our brands have been snapped up by private equity houses registered to office buildings in Guernsey, BVI or Cayman or the like. We’ve not been bothered, too, when chunks of property have been snapped up by buyers using nominee names, again traceable to accommodation addresses in faraway locations. We’ve no clue as to who the owners are.

Tax avoidance is so common as to be expected. Indeed, it would be viewed as negligence if you were doing something that might attract a hefty tax charge not to see if it could be reduced. Indeed, some of the companies behind the very titles that are screaming about the awfulness disclosed in the Pandora Papers have themselves gone down the same route and if they hadn’t, their shareholders would have demanded an explanation.

Pandora is merely the latest expression of an underlying disease. No one though, not least political parties that rely upon private donations for their funding, is attempting to find a cure. 

I exaggerate. One I met last week pronounced himself happy with his lot: the bulk of his workers were at their desks. His claim was borne out during a visit to his central London premises – they were positively buzzing, with plenty of people in evidence. His were unlike some offices I’ve been to recently – and others I’ve passed and glanced through their windows – that have a forlorn, desolate, scarcely there, feel about them.

There is little prospect of that altering, quite the reverse. The government is intent on legislating that on the first day in their new job a worker can seek to work from home or job share or vary their hours.

In theory, the Conservatives are honouring an election manifesto promise and the measure is merely extending the current requirement that an employee must wait six months before asking for flexible working.

In that sense, they argue, it is not such a dramatic step. Certainly, it’s not as radical as that proposed by Labour. The party’s Deputy Leader, Angela Rayner, pledges that “Labour will give workers the right to flexible working – not just the right to request it – and give all workers full rights from day one on the job.” After the pandemic, the “new normal”, says Rayner, “must mean a new deal for all working people based on flexibility, security and strengthened rights at work.”

When the virus hit, working from home became a plank of the Covid response as the government urged Britons to stay indoors. Then, as the UK eased out of lockdown, the official stance was still to advise people to work from home where possible.

Now comes legislation. Kwasi Kwarteng, the Business Secretary, maintains: “Empowering workers to have more say over where and when they work makes for more productive businesses and happier employees.”

In which case, why does the head of Goldman Sachs, David Solomon, decry WFH as an “aberration”? Why does Rishi Sunak warn that working from home can damage young people’s careers?

Another who has vented his frustration is Andrew Monk, chief executive of City investment firm, VSA Capital. He told Radio 4’s Today that people abuse WFH and at least in his industry, financial services, they’re less productive. He cited audits as an example. “What you’ll find is that audit work is taking significantly longer than it used to take, and of course when things take longer, it means they cost more as well, because these people tend to charge by the hour.” The truth, he said, is “although they are all working from home and say it’s all fine, it’s not fine.”

While on its face the proposed statute is not such a departure, said Monk, that is not the point. It is “setting a tone that is almost making people think they can do part-time work but on full-time salaries.”

Brave words from Monk, and from Solomon and, to an extent, Sunak. There would have been lots of bosses nodding their agreement. They will not say anything, though, because the right to flexi-working is akin to woke; to deny it is to be pilloried, to be marked down as a grasping, uncaring dinosaur.

We’ve reached a pivotal point, when employers who create jobs and generate wealth are silenced, afraid to voice the truth. Power is shifting from management to employees.

In some respects that’s a positive. It is the case that for too long some bosses have been abusing their positions, treating workers appallingly, imposing onerous working conditions and scandalous practices. Some, but not all; a minority, not the majority.

Now, though, all employers are expected to unquestioningly accept the proposition that WFH is beneficial – to their workers, their organisations, to the economy. Rather than examine and analyse, and listen to both sides, the reaction from populist, vote-chasing politicians is to play to the gallery and never mind the consequences. From headline-grabbing businesses, too, who see allowing their staff to WFH as a great PR opportunity, that being seen to grant it will validate them as empathetic and progressive.

There are two alarming aspects to this. One is that employers have no voice, they are simply not heeded – even by a Conservative government that is supposed to be their friend. This extends into other areas, beyond WFH. Employers are simply not taken seriously. Their own membership organisations, such as the Confederation of British Industry and Institute of Directors, are toothless, more concerned with macro-affairs and not concerned enough with the practicalities of trying to run a business.

The second is the speed of change. Before the pandemic, WFH was not on society’s radar as an issue of major importance. It was nice to have – an aspiration – but that was about all. Then, along came the virus and the rise of Zoom, and everything altered. Something that a few could achieve, that more enlightened bosses would allow in individual, special circumstances, became a right. Just like that.

We’re not there yet. In theory, management can refuse a request to WFH. But who wants to be the executive who is outed in the media and on social media; hounded, because they said their new hire must come into work?

Walking around our city centres and seeing the empty or only part-filled office buildings is depressing. Can it really be the case that all the energy, interaction, bonding and team building, learning on the job, spontaneity, creativity and thinking that took place in there is now being supplied by WFH, remotely?

It’s not, and to believe home working is an adequate substitute is delusional. One agency chief put it to me when he said WFH translates into out of sight, out of mind. That is not a good place for employee and employer to be.

We’re human beings, we function better together. WFH may appeal, just as being on holiday, not being in the workplace, appeals, but we should not be kidding ourselves: it is no replacement for the real thing.

I mean someone who is instantly recognisable, who can walk into any bar or restaurant, and people will nudge each other. There are the Dragons’ Den panellists, Lord Sugar, Sir Richard Branson and that’s about it. Unless they’re regularly on TV or if they’ve been involved in scandal, such as Sir Philip Green, they won’t be familiar enough. Not even Sir James Dyson will provoke a response, not everywhere. As for Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who created the world wide web, he enjoys anonymity, except among members of the tech community where he is lauded.

Back in 1985, one person who was hugely famous and whose picture was commonplace, was Clive Sinclair. The inventor of the world’s first pocket calculator – then the Sinclair ZX80, the smallest and cheapest home computer, which he followed with the best-selling ZX81 and the ZX Spectrum – Sinclair was a genius.

He died last week, aged 81, almost totally forgotten. When his death was announced, I had to do a double-take, I thought he’d been dead for years, such was his plunge into obscurity.

While he transformed lives with his ground-breaking computers, the sad aspect of Sinclair’s life, and the most telling as to how we regard and treat such people, is that he was the subject of national ridicule.

Sinclair may have come up with a PC that retailed for the unheard of price of less than £100, but he was pilloried for a machine that did not do as promised, which was riddled with flaws. This was the C5 electric three-wheeler. It was somewhere between a bike and a car. It was low-slung, open to the weather, and you sat on it like sitting in a chair with your legs outstretched. Difficult to manoeuvre, slow, and unable to go long distances without recharging, the C5 was a disaster. The sight of Sinclair, with his “boffin” beard and long scarf wrapped round his neck, attempting to drive the vehicle was a media dream. Sadly, and unforgivably, he became a popular tabloid joke figure. The C5 gained the moniker of “the poor man’s Robin Reliant” in cruel reference to a three-wheeler car that was also often held up as a topic of fun.

The fact that the C5 was ahead of its time and with refinement might have led the world in electric transport, was never raised. Compared with the e-scooters and some of the e-bikes on our streets, the C5 no longer appears so daft. None of that could help Sinclair. Rather than be admired for his triumphs and even respected for at least having a go where others would not and failing, he crashed. He did unveil new products but he was not allowed to forget the C5. To compound his fall, the press liked to focus on his private life and his fondness for models and dancers who were much younger than he was. Even that was presented as more evidence of Sinclair’s “whacky” personality.

To be fair, Sinclair did not help himself. He could be crotchety and sharp to interview. He was also sure of his own cleverness and he liked to boast. The C5, he predicted, would soon be hitting sales of 100,000 a year. In reality, it sold no more than 17,000 and towards the end of its short life, many of those were bought for curiosity and collecting, rather than to be used.

Later, he did admit his mistakes. “Clearly I should have handled it differently. If I had, it could have succeeded. I rushed at it too much and invested too much in the tooling and I should have gone a bit more gently into it.”

By then, it was too late. Sinclair would always be remembered as the nutty chap behind a strange electric trike rather than someone who with some of his other creations really did make a positive difference.

What happened to Sinclair speaks volumes about how we regard innovators. Anyone thinking of following suit, and dreaming up new devices and inventions, could be forgiven for pausing. Get it right, and you will be hailed as brilliant, but should it prove to be a turkey, the publicity you will receive will be demeaning and vicious. Far from being congratulated for trying, you will be abused and savaged. You will be unlikely to recover.

We don’t encourage our children to be creative, to aim big. Engineering, design and research, which should be in the highest rank of would-be careers, play second fiddle to going into the City and earning mega-bucks. Being something in private equity is seen as having greater significance than setting out to solve a problem.

Someone else recently canned his own electric car ambitions. Dyson spent £500m on the project before scrapping it. Crucially, he did not release it to the buying public when it was not ready. Sinclair did and paid the price; Dyson’s star remains undimmed.

In 1986, after the C5 debacle, Sinclair was forced to sell his computer business to Alan Sugar’s Amstrad, for £5m. Sinclair closed his offices in Cambridge and laid off the bulk of the staff.

His Sinclair Research company staggered on but eventually consisted of just Sinclair himself. It was a sad end. Sugar recognises the phenomenon. He once said: “In American culture, forming a company, starting something up and it completely failing, going bankrupt or whatever, is an accepted thing. They tried, they didn’t conquer, they failed and they started again. Some of the billionaires in America will tell you that they failed in their first ventures, right?

“The English culture is that if you go into the market with a big fanfare and then it fails, there’s a stigma attached. There’s a loss of confidence in that individual among investors. I have to say that we are not tuned into failure in this country. You either make it or you don’t, I’m afraid to say. I don’t agree it should be that way.”

Sinclair’s passing should be an occasion for collective navel-gazing and resolve to change, rather than an excuse for reminding us yet again of the crazy guy with his electric tricycle.

Watching Dominic Sandbrook’s recent TV series on the 1980s, a picture flashed up of the first Thatcher Cabinet. That’s when it first came to me. They had their faults, of course they did, and there was only one woman in the shot, but this white, stale, male line-up was head and shoulders above today’s crew.

Constantly, the same thought recurs. This week, listening to Angela Rayner’s appallingly robotic performance on Radio 4’s Today programme when quizzed about Labour’s social care policy, I had to swallow hard: yes, this person who repeats “hard working families” over and over, without once answering the question as to what Labour would do, despite Martha Kearney’s valiant attempts to extract anything meaningful, really is the party’s Deputy Leader.

Similarly, Priti Patel is Home Secretary. Priti Patel! But then we have a man who likes to consume a Pret a Manger Chicken and Bacon Caesar baguette every day for lunch, as Foreign Secretary. They hold the third and fourth great offices of state, Dominic Raab and Patel. And Gavin Williamson runs the country’s schools and Robert Jenrick oversees housing.

For how much longer remains to be seen, but if they were to depart their replacements are unlikely to be much better. There is a gaping lack of quality, of intellect and ability, at the top of our political parties. All of them.

We can expect to hear a lot more from the makeweights who now pass for senior figures, for their party’s stars, in the weeks ahead. Conference season is about to start and with it the annual choreographed display of non-funny jokes, fake laughter and staged applause. It’s pathetic and demeaning.

What we won’t get is anything well-argued, well-explained. Sense and logic will be notably absent. Nothing of significance will be proffered; no searing, uplifting, achievable vision will be shared. Instead, we will be treated to the same tedious simplistic litany of stock phrases and meaningless twaddle.

This, don’t forget, is when they are trying to showcase their talent, wishing to impress upon the faithful and public why they are qualified to govern. What they are like in private, away from the cameras and microphones, does not bear thinking about.

It’s not just me. At parties and dinner parties, now they’re back, others volunteer and share the identical opinion: what has happened to our political class, where are the people of real stature?

This is often said in jest; we like to poke fun at them. But it’s beyond a laughing matter. These are office holders who manage our country, our economy, who determine its future direction, our collective wellbeing, and can take us into war and settle peace. We trust them with our lives.

Not many of the present Tory bunch, Boris Johnson included – with the possible exclusion of Rishi Sunak, Kwasi Kwarteng, Nadhim Zahawi and Michael Gove (although his recent behaviour gives pause) – would have a chance of making a corporate Executive Committee, let alone Group Board, of a major FTSE100. On the Labour side, Keir Starmer would be an automatic selection, but only as in-house counsel.

As for the Liberal Democrats, the Coalition Cabinet days with the sensible likes of David Laws and Vince Cable in attendance now seem like a distant memory.

Most would not even make it to a final selection round for the next tier down, yet here they are, chosen and sitting on high.

What’s to be done? On the Conservative benches we have a Prime Minister who seemingly takes delight in appointing nonentities to senior positions, to make him appear even taller. He’s obeying human nature but it would not be tolerated by company shareholders – it is not the best way to extract performance and profit. A chief executive adopting such a stratagem would not last long.

But when you examine the supposed Tory talent pool available, it is found wanting. Labour too, having gone through schism and flux, is equally desperately lacking. This is not a problem confined to blue and red – it goes right across.

Alarming, too, is the accompanying reduction in quality in our civil service. Again, it’s another common refrain, that the class of 2021 are not a patch on their predecessors, that our public service chieftain ranks are similarly weakened. Various reasons are put forward: they’re cowed and demotivated; those of spark and spunk have left, discouraged by their elected, grandstanding, self-serving bosses.

In fact, the same question applies to them as to those who might be tempted to put their name to the ballot: why would they? For not much money compared with what they could command in the private sector they will be harried and exhausted. Constantly, they face the risk that if there is a crisis they and their families will be put in the spotlight of ridicule and humiliation by an unforgiving media and social media. They will not be able to walk across a Central London park without being assailed by drunken yobs. Their earnings will be pored over, their lives will not be theirs. No thanks, best leave it to others.

We must make a concerted attempt to halt the decline, to recruit and promote those with genuine expertise, who can also lead and manage, to the higher echelons of Westminster and Whitehall. We must weed out those who are there in the expectation of receiving an honour – there should be honour enough in serving. Likewise, those who see public office as a stepping-stone to a lucrative business career. It should be a calling, not a temporary stop over.

We want those who can think, who can analyse, dissect, reason, plan and enact. It ought not to be too much to expect. As you sit down to view the party conferences, ask yourself, who would you want on your team?

The fact that the post-Brexit EU also has the slogan “Global EU” and Ireland has “Global Ireland” is rarely mentioned. We are not alone, it seems, in claiming this mantra.

Time has moved on, such that “Global Britain” is becoming a jingoistic catch-all, applied to trade and economic matters as well as foreign affairs. Led by our chest-thumping Prime Minister, we’re convincing ourselves we’re the best we are, we really do leave the rest of the world standing.

Which is why a new report from the World Economic Forum should cause us to not wave the flag quite so vigorously. Key to our heady self-belief where business and wealth creation are concerned is the thought that we’re pretty good at digital. Yes, the US might have Silicon Valley and the world’s biggest tech companies. But over on this side of the Atlantic we forge ahead too, we’ve got various hubs dotted around the country, we’re pioneers in online, we’re a major player in this vital, growing industry of the future.

The World Economic Forum study compares the digital competitiveness of 140 countries. In his introduction, Professor Philip Meissner from the ESCP Business School and Founder and Director of the European Center for Digital Competitiveness, says: “The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that digital technologies determine not only whether or not countries thrive, but also how well they are able to navigate trying times. Applied effectively, digital technologies not only enable education and work to move from schools and offices to the home, but they also provide increasingly efficient ways to organize processes in companies and governments.”

Meissner continues: “New technologies such as 3D printing, augmented and virtual reality, sensors, artificial intelligence, quantum computing and robotics also have the potential to disrupt nearly any industry. The competitiveness of nations in these technologies will determine how prosperous their countries will be in the decades ahead.”

So where does Team GB rank? Fifteenth, a lot lower than it did in either of the medal tables at the Olympics and Paralympics. Arguably, this is a chart that carries far greater national significance and should be studied more closely by politicians, instead of poring over analysis as to why our rowing men and women did not perform so well and whether they should have their funding withdrawn. Public money ought to be deployed to lift us up this list, and now.

The report analyses and ranks the changes that countries around the globe have seen in their digital competitiveness over the last three years. It measures the two most important ingredients for digital competitiveness: “the country’s ecosystem and its mindset”.

The analysis draws on data from the World Economic Forum, as well as supporting material provided by the World Bank and the International Telecommunication Union.

Top – no surprise – is China, followed by Saudi Arabia and Brazil. Within the G7, Canada is the best performer, ahead of Italy. This is not based on the size of their digital economies, don’t forget, but a measure of progress, how quickly they are advancing, how competitive they are becoming.

How are they doing it? By following comprehensive plans with ambitious goals. China, for instance, has introduced a huge, all-embracing push in entrepreneurship and innovation. With its China 2025 initiative, Beijing is providing state support for 10 key sectors in which it aims, starkly and boldly, to become a world leader.

Aiming high is not confined to China. Other nations have also formulated aspirational visions for their digital future: Vietnam is determined its digital economy will account for 30 per cent of GDP by 2030, and Hungary has made its goal to become one of the 10 leading countries in digital technologies in Europe by the end of the decade. The most competitive also launch concrete initiatives to back up these goals. Italy, for example, has started Repubblica Digitale, a programme to overcome the digital divide, promoting digital inclusion and boosting the development of digital skills among its citizens.

They’re focusing, too, on entrepreneurship. Brazil, for instance, has launched various public and public-private efforts to stimulate entrepreneurship in the country such as the InovAtiva Brasil programme, StartOut Brasil and the National Committee of Start-Up Support initiatives. In Egypt, the government has ordered the development of no less than six technology parks to foster innovation and entrepreneurship. Meanwhile, the Canadian government is pumping more than $1.2 billion into so-called Innovation Superclusters to accelerate business-driven innovation, with the potential, it believes, to energise the entire economy.

Britain, of course, has its own approach. Two months ago, the Government published its UK Innovation Strategy: leading the future by creating it. The intention is “to make the UK a global hub for innovation by 2035”.

Then came the “four pillars” for achieving this success: “Unleashing Business – We will fuel businesses that want to innovate”; “People – making the UK the most exciting place for innovative talent”; “Institutions & Places – We will ensure our research, development and innovation institutions serve the needs of businesses and places across the UK”; “Missions & Technologies – We will stimulate innovation to tackle major challenges faced by the UK and the world and drive capability in key technologies”.

Said the paper: “Innovation is crucial to the UK building back better. It is at the heart of Build Back Better: our plan for growth and so much else we want to achieve, from fighting coronavirus to achieving net zero and building Global Britain.”

Powerful words but, in context, do they amount to much, to enough? We’re facing competitors, according to the World Economic Forum, that have digital growth ingrained in their ecosystems, in their mindsets. As the UK government report declares: “We are in a race to the top”. We’re currently down at 15th.

That’s right, those small sausages wrapped in bacon – a requisite, it seems, of every Christmas meal. Forget the turkey, goose, sprouts, roast potatoes, parsnips, bread sauce, stuffing, cranberry, pudding – it’s pigs in blankets that count. So much so that their threatened absence this coming season might just be the clincher in bringing this government to its senses. 

Britain is facing a chronic labour shortage. On Friday night, at a restaurant our pre-dinner drinks took forever to arrive. When we sat down, the food was also slow in coming. Why? Lack of bar, waiting and kitchen staff. Throughout the place they were struggling to keep up. 

That experience is being repeated up and down the land. My pal who runs a pubs and restaurants group now has 140 vacancies on his books. We were lucky to get a meal at all – another friend, also in the same industry, is now closing his outlets most days of the week because he has not got enough workers. 

Ministers have heard tales like this, of course they have. As have backbenchers who are badgering them with complaints from their constituents. They also know the gaps are not only in the hospitality sector, but across all areas of the economy, in food manufacturing, construction, computer programming, video gaming, anywhere in fact that relied upon people from the EU. So far, they’ve done precious little about it. 

That may now shift. Once the words “Save Our Sausages” or SOS (geddit) start appearing in tabloid headlines, politicians realise they must act. For those who went to boarding school, and there are plenty of those in this administration, the prospect of being denied the greasy comfort of a cooked sausage is too horrific to contemplate. They’re aware, as well, that’s how the public see it. 

So that’s why the warning from the British Meat Processors Association is timely. BMPA chief executive Nick Allen says that on average, BMPA members are around 12 – 13 per cent short in staff, with one company missing about a fifth of its workforce. “Some of the pig processors are having to cut down on how many pigs they are processing a week so that’s starting to have an impact back on the farm. We are cutting back and prioritising lines and cutting out on things, so there just won’t be the totals of Christmas favourites like we are used to.”

Allen reckons the usual demand for pigs in blankets totals 40 million packets, but this year that could be cut by a third. Gammon supplies could be similarly affected. Forget gammon Nick, stick to sausages if you want to achieve cut through with an Eton PM, Winchester Chancellor and Eton Business Secretary. 

Seriously, though, what are they going to do? Another statistic. Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the British Retail Consortium, says: “The UK faces a shortfall of 90,000 HGV drivers and it is consumers who will ultimately suffer for this. So far, disruption has been minimal, thanks to the incredible work by retailers and their suppliers.” Dickinson adds: “Retailers are increasing pay rates [Waitrose is upping its pay for lorry drivers to £54k a year], offering bonuses and introducing new driver training schemes, as well as directly supporting their suppliers in the movement of goods, but government will need to play its part. We are calling on the government to rapidly increase the number of HGV driving tests taking place, provide temporary visas for EU drivers, and to make changes on how HGV driver training can be funded.”

Ministers have yet to fully respond. There is no sign of an urgent, all-embracing plan to plug the yawning holes appearing in UK Plc. 

Perhaps they cannot bring themselves to admit they never saw this coming, that having railed against the EU they did not suppose immigrants from there might decide to return home, to where they were actively welcomed. Certainly, it would require the difficult swallowing of a large morsel of sausage to now admit a mistake has been made and begin offering EU permits. 

Possibly, also, they believe the situation may improve once Covid vanishes. It’s true that the pandemic has exacerbated the problem and when pinging was at its height, staff scarcities were even greater. But we’re now through the adult vaccination programme and looking to implement boosters, and still Covid remains. This is about as normal as we’re going to be for the foreseeable future, until the world has defeated the virus. 

The only advice the government is giving is for businesses to invest in domestic workers. Kwasi Karteng, the Business Secretary, has written to industry groups urging employers to help the “many UK-based workers [who] now face an uncertain future and need to find new employment opportunities”. Kwarteng writes: “I am sure you would agree on the importance of utilising the strength of our domestic workforce and how our migration policies need to be considered alongside our strategies to ensure UK-based workers are better able to secure decent employment opportunities.”

In some respects, his approach is correct – for far too long, many British firms have sought instant, often cheaper, employees from overseas rather than encouraging and nurturing homegrown skills and talent. They’ve become used to offering low salaries and making high profits (in areas, such as fast food and supermarket essentials, it’s also the case that we, as consumers, have become fond of paying low prices). 

Kwarteng, though, must know that this can only be a long-term solution. Recruiting and training are not going to occur immediately. The government must be less black and white on this, and compromise. Businesses need to be able to find the workers they need right now, while at the same time, they must set out to provide workers in the UK with the requisite expertise. It’s a balance, and the government must play its part, in relaxing its immigration rules to let needed people back in – and to be seen to want them back in – while encouraging and incentivising businesses to provide training schemes. Similarly, those already here must be motivated to want to retrain and to work. 

In the meantime, until the government really does act, the pressure will continue to build. We could, of course, make our own pigs in blankets, and wrap the bacon around the sausages ourselves. No chance, we’re far too lazy for that. SOS, now!

Farmers, urbanites who’ve moved there, fishing trawlers, artisan crafts and shops, breweries, beekeepers… the list of apparently fascinating subjects is endless. I swear to God, at the sight of one more rare breed farm I will scream.

Where, in this utterly boring, self-congratulating, nice to look at (but they never show the rain), confection of schmaltz, is London? Our capital, centre of the nation’s culture and history, remains forlorn and unloved. The high-ups who run the BBC these days would do anything other than show London on our screens. It’s all regional now. The mandatory news vox pop is not a vox pop, apparently, if it’s in our and Europe’s biggest city, one of the few genuine world cities.

London does not have a voice, no longer has a presence at any top table. Take this summer. This, of all years, should be the one where Britons are encouraged to holiday in London, to take in the famous sights without, for once, the lines of foreign tourists. The museums, galleries, theatres, parks, iconic bars, restaurants and stores – they’re all open. But where are the people? All in the West Country, cheek by jowl in Padstow or some such over-hyped destination.

This should have been a golden opportunity for London to sell its wares. Yet there is precious little sign of a nationwide, concerted promotional campaign, either paid-for or free (as I say, you could be forgiven for supposing the whole of the UK has a hankering for “traditional West Country” clotted cream teas, pasties and cider). It’s as if London has become a dirty word in some circles, somewhere that must not be mentioned, to be avoided.

The greatest metropolis in the country, one of the greatest on the planet, is landed with a mayor who displays little evidence of loving it. All you see of Sadiq Khan these days is when he appears on a nightly local news bulletin, looking doleful, alongside a stretch of police “crime scene” tape, the site of yet another stabbing, or when he is unveiling a housing or social scheme. Does he beam and exude positivity and enthuse about the brilliance of his patch? Will he ever.

Khan does not push London. He appears disconnected, disinterested, even opposed to its commercial heart. The City of London, one of the two leading financial hubs on the entire planet, is despairing at the lack of a Brexit deal on financial services. But you don’t hear Khan championing and prodding, not constantly and not in a manner that feels convincing.

Contrast him with Andy Burnham in Greater Manchester or Andy Street in the West Midlands. They, and other elected mayors, speak relentlessly about business and investment. In Manchester last week, I was struck by the buzz and dynamism of the place, the signs everywhere extolling its virtues. Everything smacked of “can do”.

Manchester has always had that vibe versus its regional rivals. It’s an entrepreneurial town, a local magnet for merchants and wheeler-dealers, glass permanently half-full. But then, so has London, albeit on a much grander, truly national and international scale. Yet, London seems handicapped by a mayoral authority that cannot even make up its mind if it wants commuters to use its own public transport system or not. It wants them to use the Tube; no, it would prefer if they would cycle or walk. This seems to be high on the Khan list of priorities, far above persuading businesses to base themselves in London, to provide jobs and generate wealth.

London finds itself subjected to a troika of apathy and antipathy. Along with the BBC and Mayor, the third leg is the government. Boris Johnson does not want to know. The Olympics, Boris’s mayoralty, they seem far away now. The reason there was no settlement for banking and finance in the Brexit agreement is that the Prime Minister and his negotiating team left it out. This, despite the City being a shining success of recent decades, one part of the British economy that has powered ahead and left the rest of Europe floundering. The EU, naturally, would like some of what we’re having – so Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Paris, they’re all desperate to grab what they can of our booming capital markets and corporate advisory industries.

Johnson, though, won the election on the back of “levelling up”, persuading the Midlands and North that he would do his best to get them on a par with the South. London and its financial district, they’re anathema. As is anywhere in the South-East. Johnson’s announcements and his camera-catching high-vis jackets and lab coats are reserved for addresses distant from London, regarded through Tory eyes as predominantly Labour.

His administration is all about moving civil servants out of London, pumping billions into projects that conform to his agenda. The capital is left to languish, to level down.

When a bridge across the Thames was closed to all traffic, including pedestrians, Johnson did not seem to bother. Hammersmith was in London – worse, in West London. Khan did not put himself out either. Imagine if the crossing had been in Lancashire or Yorkshire or Burnham’s Manchester. The noise would have been deafening; the bridge would be repaired and reopened, or a temporary replacement built, double-quick. Instead, it’s taken nearly a year for pedestrians and cyclists to be allowed to return, with no date at all for when motor vehicles can again use Hammersmith Bridge.

Khan and Johnson will make excuses, they’re good at that. But the fact is, if they cared enough, they would have made sure the bridge was functioning as soon as possible, and certainly not in almost 12 months and albeit still with restrictions.

No, looking at the BBC, Mayor and Prime Minister, and their attitude towards Britain’s pre-eminent city, the words of another Johnson spring to mind. It can’t be coincidence perhaps that in so much of what they do they give the impression of being tired of life. 

Few people knew what it meant, although the words sounded good. Significantly, hardly anyone in government apart from Cameron repeated them and over time the declared aim was quietly shelved.

In similar fashion, Boris Johnson has made “levelling up” a plank of his domestic policy agenda. Already, it’s achieved something that “Big Society” never did, yielding seats for the Tories in the Midlands and North.

Ah yes, but is it any more real? Is “levelling up” also destined for the scrapheap of broken electoral promises?

Johnson will say “phooey” or some such, in that inimitable style of his. Certainly, “levelling up” is displaying more legs than the Cameron scheme. It’s been trotted out by more of Johnson’s colleagues; MPs, especially those who owe their jobs to it, repeatedly point to government measures or ideas as being part of the “levelling up agenda”. 

It’s got greater resonance; its meaning is widely accepted. Or is it? Rishi Sunak said moving part of the Treasury workforce to a new, purpose-built site in Darlington showed just how serious the administration was about levelling up.

This, while the Prime Minister makes a speech explaining what he believes levelling up means. “A woman from York has on average a decade longer of healthy life expectancy than a woman from Doncaster,” said Johnson. And: “Why should income per head in Monmouthshire be 50 per cent higher than in Blaenau Gwent?” He continued: “Why do “two-thirds of graduates from our top 30 universities end up in London”?

Gulp. It’s difficult to see how the shunting of a clutch of civil servants to the North-East even begins to display intent about tackling that lot. Sunak, of course, is sticking to what is achievable and affordable; Johnson, as is his wont, is clutching at something altogether loftier and grander.

Now the numbers have been crunched and they must make even Johnson wish he’d not been so cavalier. According to the Centre for Cities think tank, in summary, to achieve levelling up will require a similar level of funding to the reunification of Germany, £2 trillion or thereabouts. The non-partisan body said that the moves announced so far were a “drop in the ocean” and closing the north-south divide would swallow hundreds of billions of pounds over decades, if done properly.

That last, if done properly, could be seized upon by Johnson. He may choose to deliver “levelling up lite”, a series of wheezes like relocating a section of the Treasury from London (nothing wrong with it, by the way, but what, in practice will the “Northern Campus” really amount to?).

To ram home their message, Centre for Cities also offered comparisons on life expectancy, as Johnson did, but this time with locations in Europe – so the average person in Madrid can expect to live 10 years longer than someone in Glasgow or Liverpool.

The problem is that Johnson is the one who won the general election – he was believed. No one in those former “red wall” constituencies thought for a second he was referring only to putting Treasury wonks in offices in Darlington and the like.

This is already becoming clear. There are stirrings from unlikely quarters in those very places he wooed, and they should make Johnson sit up and take notice. James Ramsbotham, CEO of North-East England Chamber of Commerce and a former Barclays Bank executive and son of the ex-army general, David Ramsbotham – not someone you would suppose naturally inclined to oppose the Tories – has written to the Prime Minister complaining about a lack of strategic planning. He charges: “This government has broken the traditional link between the Conservative party and business.”

Ramsbotham, who is quitting as the chamber’s chief executive after 15 years to become chair of Newcastle Building Society, says that Brexit has not helped. “Hitachi bought a site in the north-east with a view to building trains for the whole of Europe. The place was big enough for three factories, but they have only built one and the rest of the land is vacant. If you want to see where the trains are going to be made for the EU, you’ll need to visit Hitachi’s new factory in Italy.”

In the West Midlands, the region’s newly re-elected Tory mayor, Andy Street, has called upon Johnson to match the symbolism of levelling up with “concrete policies”. Street, also a businessman as the former head of John Lewis, is seeking a “full policy platform” from the Prime Minister in the coming months.

He’s heartened by the fact that so far, Johnson has exhibited no sign of reversing on levelling up but cautions that those voters who turned to the Tories in Midlands and North “want to see delivery”. He’s demanding “reconciliation” between those in government who advocate high public spending, such as Johnson, and those who prefer a restrained approach, like Sunak. One solution as well, he says, is to involve the private sector, to encourage greater corporate investment.

These are warnings for Johnson. He can ignore them, but he does so at his peril. While he may be cut some slack for Covid, that crisis might now be ending or at least waning. That will turn the spotlight on the economy, on national issues, on the initiatives the government is taking, and said it would take, that have nothing to do with combating the virus.

Johnson has raised expectancy; by blandishing such a sweeping term over and over, the bar is high. It secured him an unlikely rout at the ballot box; but now words like “delivery” and “concrete policies” are being used, and not by his opponents but by his own followers.

This is dangerous territory. Does he allow levelling up to wither, as occurred with Big Society? Does he begin to water down its meaning, to an objective that is achievable, a policy that can be built around and is manageable? Or does he carry on, blithely claiming, among other things, he wants to enable folk to live longer?

Awkward questions. As we head into conference season, the natives are getting restless. The clock is ticking on the answer. 

Not for the first time the call goes up: Boris, Boris, what have you done? What he said, in the context of the UK switching to greener fuels, was this: “Thanks to Margaret Thatcher, who closed so many coal mines across the country, we had a big early start and we’re now moving rapidly away from coal altogether.”

Cue screams for an apology. But none is forthcoming. All his official spokesman will say is “The Prime Minister recognises the huge impact and pain closing coal-mines had in communities across the UK.”

Nor will there be. Johnson knew what he was doing, he gauged what the reaction would be, it was said to poke and to startle, it was a calculated act. He isn’t going to say sorry for that. 

He made it clear the comment was intended as a joke, adding to reporters: “I thought that would get you going.” This wasn’t blurting; this was deliberately said, pre-planned and considered. 

It’s easy to dismiss Johnson as a buffoon who chucks out the first thing that comes into his head. That’s an impression he often gives. 

The reality, though, is different. This is someone who, when he was a journalist, made up attributable quotes. That may not sound like much to those who have never been in the media, indeed it may seem relatively trivial. In fact, it does not get any worse. 

There are two sins in the press: plagiarism and falsifying. The former happens frequently and may even occur subliminally – you read or hear something, then trot it out without thinking. It’s still wrong but is excusable. Wholesale copying without crediting is more serious. 

More extreme, however, is making up a quote and putting someone’s name to it. Johnson did that when he was at The Times and cited his Oxford academic godfather as having said it. The assumption must have been that the don would stand by his godson, that he wouldn’t mind. Well, he did care, he was furious in fact, complained, and Johnson duly lost his job.

Johnson later told the filmmaker Michael Cockerell: “It was awful… I remember a deep, deep sense of shame and guilt… just not knowing how to sort it out… it was a bit of a bummer frankly.”

This is a telling episode from Johnson’s life – it displays a level of deviousness that simply would not exist in others. And, while he said that to Cockerell, he followed the apparent heartfelt mea culpa with something rather less, telling Eddie Mair in a radio interview when asked about the episode: “I mildly sandpapered something somebody said”. 

So, what was he thinking, when he dropped in the reference to the miners and Mrs Thatcher? Johnson eats and breathes popularity. He reads the Telegraph first every day, followed by The Sun. Much of what he does or says is the result of having been run by, or emerged from, polling and focus groups. 

He studies their findings and opinions avidly. Just at the point when Rishi Sunak is climbing high in the charts and Johnson is falling, he invokes the Iron Lady and the miners, and in relation to eco. 

It’s meant, same as his comment about Muslim women wearing burqas. He says something that makes many people – not his political opponents – nod and murmur “good old Boris.” He’s having a laugh, not much of one, but a laugh, nonetheless. It’s what they love him for. 

Johnson knows there will be fury, of course there will be – it’s a deplorable statement, also factually inaccurate. He doesn’t care. He’s raised the spectre of the great Tory battle with the National Union of Mineworkers and union strength– which is how it’s seen in some Tory circles – reminding the party of their former leader and her fearless struggle. 

He’s saying it in Scotland, home base of his arch enemy, Sturgeon. Thatcher versus Sturgeon? No contest. 

Just when the Tory faithful and MPs are getting twitchy about environmental measures that will dominate the agenda in the run up to and beyond the climate changes talks at COP26, as his supporters are moaning about having to trade-in their diesel cars and having to face new restrictions, he links Thatcher and the mines with the present, with his (and Carrie’s) priorities. 

He can say it too, because he can, because he’s Boris. Sunak, he knows, would never utter such a thing, never. Rishi is far too cautious for that. Besides, would Sunak dare have the courage to hark back to Thatcher? The Chancellor hails from a Yorkshire constituency as well, so referencing the mines makes it even more unlikely. Only he, Boris, can be so daring and clever. 

It’s what he’s known for, why he wins and why criticism falls off him. This is a prime minister, we now know (thanks to his embittered former advisor, Dominic Cummings), who chooses to create chaos and sets out to have a Cabinet comprising ministers he knows are not up to the task. Sure, that is grossly irresponsible – he is playing with departments of state after all – but it doesn’t half make Johnson look good, the king above the fray, the one certainty to whom they owe their allegiance. 

Here’s another aspect to Johnson’s method in his madness: he knows that every time Sturgeon and Starmer pop up on our screens, those Boris must woo if he is to win the next general election are turned off. How can he be so sure? Because his private polling tells him so. They can’t do anything, those two: they can huff and puff but they can’t bring the house down; he, Boris, is in charge. It’s the Summer recess as well so he does not even have to explain himself to the boring, lawyerly pedant opposite. 

No, you can see what was in his head. Reach for a grenade, tug out the pin and lob it, same as you’ve done before. There will be an explosion, definitely. As he said, that will get them going. But the miners‘ strike, Mrs T, green, all in the same sentence, said by Johnson with Mrs Johnson (who is too young to remember) presumably laughing along, and Rishi too timid… what’s not to like? It’s a classic dead cat play. Brilliant. 

Next, a leak appears saying that Johnson actively suggested demoting Sunak. Again, more outrage. It’s a leak about a leak as well – the first was a leaked letter portraying Sunak as an action man as the Chancellor argued for a relaxing of travel restrictions. What does Boris do? A report appears saying that he told a meeting: “’I’ve been thinking about it. Maybe it’s time we looked at Rishi as the next Secretary of State for Health. He could potentially do a very good job there.’”

A senior government source is quoted as saying: “In an open meeting, after ranting about Rishi, he then suggested the Chancellor could be demoted in the next reshuffle.”

Wait, he knew it would get out. It was an “open meeting”. It was Johnson being boss again. Sunak may be climbing the rankings, but he, Boris, is in control. Only he has the power to fire or promote. He realises too that those the party polls and quizzes in focus groups, don’t yet entirely get or trust Sunak. The Chancellor remains very much an unknown – unlike the extremely known Johnson. 

We’re informed Johnson issued his threat “half in jest.” So, it was partly serious, then. As Boris suggested, a propos of another supposedly recent off-the-cuff remark, about the mines and global warming, that will get them going. And it does. 

Johnson, we’re told by those close to him, wants to be loved. He craves applause and attention. The best way for his enemies and rivals to deal with him would be to not react, to say nothing. But he knows they won’t do that. They will shout and protest, because they must, and he will glide on – same as he did in the mayoral, leadership and general elections, when he came out with outrageous statements and still won.

Keep provoking, keep reminding the folk you want to target who is a winning Prime Minister. And on we go. 

“Giant 3D printer can get HS2 back on track” is the headline on a piece explaining how 3D printing will be deployed to cut costs, disruption and emissions. I looked in vain for the words “Classic Boris” tagged on the end, because this smacked of a familiar tactic adopted by this Prime Minister – every time a negative appears, chuck in a positive. The more it can be made breath-taking and enticing, the better. 

“Reinforced concrete structures installed as part of the 225mph railway will be printed on site by a giant robotic arm to avoid the inconvenience of transporting precast slabs by the road.” 

I don’t know if the order came down to find something diversionary to say or whether HS2 came up with the timing themselves. Perhaps, in Boris-land, these things now occur subliminally. Certainly, the words smacked of a salivating Johnson: “The mobile machine will squirt concrete laced with super-strong graphene through a nozzle”.

This is a Prime Minister who gushes hyperbole, who spews claim after claim.  Talk to those around Number Ten these days and they say that the only subjects he cares about are “les grands projets”. 

Rarely does he dwell on the intricacies of education, social policy, work and pensions. What he likes is buoyant optimism, throwing out impressive numbers. How they’re achieved is a different matter. Best of all he prefers to dwell on banner, flagship schemes concerning the environment (nodding to Mrs Johnson) and especially transport. 

Top of the list is HS2. Criticism of the projected service is simply brushed aside. No matter there is little tangible evidence of the supposed benefits it will bring. No matter that the £106 billion cost, and rising, would yield an awful lot of hospitals, schools and super-quick digital equipment. No matter that the world has changed and the pandemic has shown how people can WFH. No matter, too, that what the North of England really requires, apart from new hospitals, schools and super-quick digital, is a reliable, speedy train service across the region, between towns and cities. Northern Powerhouse, not North-South. 

None of this is allowed to get in the fast link’s relentless progress. It’s nothing short of a vanity project, and on an epic scale – the largest single infrastructure spend in Europe. 

Politically, Johnson could justify the railway by proclaiming it as a vital component of his “levelling up” agenda. It’s all about connecting North and South, at last removing that great divide. Frequent, hurtling trains will bring them closer together, enabling commuters to move seamlessly up and down, allowing businesses and government departments to function easily away from the capital. 

What a legacy, the Premier who united England, who levelled up. Of course, there will be niggles. No one likes to see their pleasant, green fields cut in two by a train line. There is bound to be anguish, as landscapes are dug up and homes and gardens destroyed. Some traditional Tory seats along the route will be put out. Johnson gets that – and in case he doesn’t entirely, the recent Chesham and Amersham by-election upset gave him a jolt. Hence, as well, the claim in relation to the giant robot arm and nozzle that 3D printing will help reduce disruption caused by lorries – his voters will be able to rest more easily. 

Nevertheless, he is in danger of committing a gross betrayal. Running the second phase of HS2 only to Manchester and Liverpool may seem acceptable to those in London – “HS2 light” but still HS2 – but to the Eastern side of the Pennines and Midlands it amounts to treachery. They’re promised something by someone who professes to understand and to care, then it’s taken from them. Worse, in their eyes, Manchester, the city that enjoys the highest profile, that lords it over them, is to get the service. Boris, you’re committing electoral suicide. You can say goodbye to Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire and all those seats you won so unexpectedly. They were prepared to give you a chance, to take you at your word, to believe you when you said you were going to “level up”. Not anymore. Now they see you as yet another politician who is “all mouth and no trousers”. 

It won’t even assist him in retaining his new friends in the western half. Manchester and Liverpool will gain, but what they desire, more than shorter times to and from London, is a better network throughout the North. They would like to see journeys from Liverpool to Leeds, Liverpool to Sheffield, Manchester to Wakefield, Manchester to Barnsley, everywhere in the North of England, slashed. They would like, too, to be able to make them in comfort, not to be fobbed off as is often the case, with old rolling stock discarded by the South. 

That Northern Powerhouse ideal, however, is simply not sexy, not to a Southerner – Harrogate to Stockport does not exactly get the Johnson juices flowing. He wants the big ticket, the airport on an island, the bridge across to Northern Ireland, even as he once mooted the bridge to France. His reading of history tells him that’s how empires were built, how their great leaders are remembered. He’s chasing posterity – such a shame about the other, inconvenient stuff. 

He should terminate the beast now. End it, all of it, the whole thing. Excuses will be made that work has already begun. In the context of a 20-year timescale to completion we’re barely underway. It’s not too late. It really isn’t.