Monday news

Focus from Number 10 and the Cabinet Office is now getting schools back up and running.

Most right leaning papers on Sunday, and again this morning dealt with how important such things were, and that it was those dratted union’s fault.

A working track and trace system would be one of the prerequisites for the reopening of schools. But that has been mishandled so badly, it would get its own episode of The Thick of It.

And that people black, Asian and minorities are up to 8x more likely to be infected with the virus. That is before the possibility that children could be showing no symptoms, of just be carriers.

Photos taken in a school in Georgia (US) last week showed students in corridors and classrooms squeezed together and no maks being worn. That the students who shared the pictures have been suspended is another matter. But as soon as you tell children not to do something, they will be licking door handles or playing “it” by coughing over each other. I was a child at one time too, and it happens.

There also a duty of care for teachers, assistants and other staff at schools by local authorities in ensuring they cannot be infected. Social distancing means that very few schools will be able to be have every student in attendance each day, or every other day, and this is likely to be the case for much of the upcoming school year.

But blame the unions for wanting their members to be safe, or as safe as possible.

As cases surge on mainland Europe, it is odd for the Daily Express to claim, as it did this morning, that the UK, and the UK alone, is defeating the virus. Doctors have learned how to treat the disease says the headline, quoting a “top consultant”. Over the weekend, cases in Denmark increased by about 170, with 50% of those coming from the Aarhus region, and the city is likely to be locked down harder by the end of the day, with everyone working from home again, who can.

It is heartening to discover, then, from the Express, that the border between Britain and the EU is virus repellent.

Meanwhile, in Brexitlalaland, IDS says ” We cannot trust the #EU's 'good faith' if they are breaking own rules on #Brexit negotiations...”, in an article for the , *checks notes, Daily Express. That he, as an MP stood up in Parliament and stated that it was fine to reduce scrutiny of the WA to just two days because he had debated it enough to know it all. Odd then to claim that the small print that such Parliamentary scrutiny was meant to discover, was brushed aside so quickly.

I don’t thin even IDS is that dim to not have known what was in the WA, but voted it through to get the UK to leave the EU, then scupper any agreement in the new year. Now it’s just a case of trying to blame Johnny Foreigner for the failure.

In his piece today, IDS claimed there is provision for the UK to be liable for £160 billion of debt if the European Investment Bank were to fail. IDS falsely assumes that “assumes that every single one of the European Investment Bank's investments fails without restructuring (the Bank has an AAA credit rating) – and that the EU countries decide to call upon capital rather than find other means of covering the liability.” Which isn’t going to happen. But makes for great headlines.

And so the claim the EU is acting in bad faith when compared to voting through and celebrating the WA bill through Parliament last year, only now to turn against it is pretty much textbook bad faith, and shames his has an MP and former party leader. But then he is shameless. Cheering laws to take away benefits from the sick and disabled.

Neither is it in the WA, as DD claims, that there HAS to be a FTA by the end of the transition, only states that both sides should use best endeavours to secure one. And neither side can annul the WA, the only possibility for that is by the NI Executive under certain circumstances.

But don’t let that get in the way of a good, Brexit friendly headline.