Simon Walters

I wouldn’t say I felt I had joined a master race when my coronavirus ‘immunity passport’ arrived this week. But I did have a slightly smug glow of satisfaction when discussing my positive Covid-19 antibody test result with colleagues. ‘Jammy devil’ and ‘I wish I had one’ were among the envious, bordering on resentful, responses. Although there is no absolute proof, it means it is almost certain I cannot get the disease again soon and consequently, unable to pass it on to anyone else. By contrast, friends who had antibody tests that proved negative bore the dejected air of youngsters who had just failed the 11 plus exam. Or failed their driving test for the fourth time. I paid £85 to a private GP practice for the test.

One of the reasons Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour was so shocked by the scale of its defeat at the last election is because they just don’t understand Boris Johnson’s appeal. All of their pre-programmed, politically correct left-wing instincts told them that he is anathema to Labour voters. How could a womanising, right-wing Etonian appeal to decent working men and women? Unfortunately for Labour it was decent working men and women who won Johnson two remarkable, against the odds, victories: the EU referendum and an election landslide. Nor was it only the Labour Party that misjudged Johnson. Tory grandees like John Major and Michael Heseltine paraded their haughty disdain and urged the Conservative faithful to reject him.