Andy Richardson: 'The jobs crash has only just started'
For decades, they have dominated the skies.
British Airways fleet of 31 Boeing 747s have been called The Queen Of The Skies; now they are no more. The plane that revolutionised air travel and made it available to the masses will be shipped off to the great big aircraft carrier in the sky. Each one carries 467 passengers – that’s a shortfall of 14,447 at anyone time. And that’s just for one type of aircraft. Unless the Government gets its response right, this winter will be worse than the passing spring.
Still, Auntie Beeb has provided a helpful online feature giving us tips on how to spend summer. It’s filled with the usual, dull suspects – hold a wedding (presumably, you’ll need to find a partner for that, preferably one who isn’t already married) and stage a pretend festival at home, camping in the garden and ordering in festival-style food… (there’s a Pulitzer Prize, right there). Then there’s this: take up bowls. Has it come to this?
Sure, bowls is a wonderful sport for those tired of more active pursuits – erm, like everything, including darts – but is a genteel sport played at a sedate pace well-suited to its elderly, white-clad participants the best we can all hope for? Do we need to switch our adoration from Ben Stokes and Lionel Messi to Nick Brett and Greg Harlow?
Animals have had a pretty good pandemic, with goats, dolphins and rheas moving into areas formerly inhabited by humans. Spanish mink, however, are faring poorly.
Almost 100,000 at a fur farm 125 miles from Madrid are facing a cull after 87 per cent became infected with Covid-19.
Eight farm workers have also tested positive.
City businesses, including coffee shops, restaurants, sandwich shops and more face ruin as people continue to shun town centres and businesses. Companies built up over decades are going bust, through no fault of their own. The jobs crash has only just started. We are living in an area of ghost towns. Even though businesses are able to open, there is no trade.
The Government is ploughing £3 billion into the NHS, which is great news.
We ought to remember, however, that it was elected on a side-of-a-bus slogan that promised £350 million a week savings from the EU – so we’ll have recouped that within eight weeks and four days. Yeah… right.
