Boris Johnson “is riding an astonishing wave of public approval”, says Trevor Kavanagh in The Sun. That’s because he talks up Britain and trounces any naysayers with our world-beating vaccine rollout. “Even the French rate him more than their own president.” He’ll be the star at the G7 summit this week, eclipsing Emmanuel Macron, “doomed” Angela Merkel, the European Commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen and President Biden, “who is already showing his age”.
Unlike the doomsters, our optimistic PM believes we’re “good to go” for a full reopening on 21 June. But warring factions in the Cabinet are holding him back. The Indian variant has spooked a “super-cautious” minority, including Health Secretary Matt Hancock and Michael Gove, who favour a delay. Even NHS executives are questioning this approach. Chris Hopson, head of NHS Providers, doesn’t think there’s much to worry about thanks to vaccines – hospital admissions are much lower than they were in the second wave, and tend to be younger patients who recover quickly. But “shroud-waving” Sage scientists aren’t swayed by that, while a “seriously hardcore majority of voters” are also happy to be bossed about. So Boris needs to be brave to Save Our Summer. Will a politician who famously loves to be loved risk becoming unpopular by challenging “the science”? We’re about to find out.
Read the full article here.