When Omicron struck, Britain was already the most boosted country in Europe. Our programme was so advanced that 80 per cent of pensioners were already triple-jabbed. This helped force the new variant into reverse in the first days of January, with hospitalisations half of the previous peak. A country whose economic recovery had already surpassed
Home Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, told the Commons that Britain was prepared to send troops to protect Nato allies in Europe if Russia invaded Ukraine. The Foreign Office named Yevhen Murayev, a former Ukrainian MP, as a candidate that President Vladimir Putin of Russia was plotting to install in Ukraine. About half the staff
I only voted in one no-confidence motion. The leader was Iain Duncan Smith, and it was a bit awkward. I spent hours every week helping Iain with Prime Minister’s Questions, and felt sorry for him. At the same time, his leadership was a disaster. Indeed, Tony Blair was going easy on him in the chamber
The singer Cher, now 75, has announced that, because she refuses to appear old, she is not going to allow her hair to go grey. But the ancient view was that there was nothing inherently wrong with old age, as long as one prepared for it, accepted it and respected it for what it was,
Prime numbers As of 29 January Boris Johnson will have been Prime Minister for two years and 190 days. Currently he is 38th out of 55th in the list of longest-serving PMs, sandwiched between Henry Campbell-Bannerman, whom he overtook on 22 November, and Spencer Perceval, the only PM to have been assassinated. Johnson will have
Russia’s star Sir: Wolfgang Münchau is surely right to highlight the risk posed to European peace and stability by Germany’s strategic myopia (‘In the pipeline’, 22 January). But he may be in error to assert that ‘Russia is in the ascendant’ — at least in terms of the fundamentals. Russia no longer makes it into
