INEQUALITY, the EU vaccine row and why Covid is not responsible for the demise of the high street were the topics debated by columnists and contributors in the newspapers.

The Guardian

Polly Toynbee said when the great reckoning is made as to why the UK did so badly in Covid infections and deaths ‘the grand inquisitors will point to the threadbare NHS and public services.’

“But inequality will bear much of the blame: the infection spread more easily among the people least able to protect themselves – and until everyone is protected, no one is,” she said. “That’s the price we pay for the political choices this country has made time and again.”

She said the Tories had spent decades impoverishing people by blocking higher pay, fairer chances, good social housing and decent social security.

“ Praise has been heaped on Sunak’s generosity, but here’s the shocking fact revealed by Torsten Bell of the Resolution Foundation this week: due to benefits parsimony, the bottom fifth of people have seen their incomes fall for the past 15 years, while everyone else’s rose..”

The Daily Express

Annabelle Sanderson said a UK official had suggested that the latest outburst from the other side of the Channel over the efficacy of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine will have increased support for Brexit to 90 percent.

“The reports in two leading daily newspapers, citing ‘anonymous sources’ (of course) without any data to back up their statements, have only highlighted just how far behind the EU is in its vaccination programme,” she said. “As Matt Hancock delightedly pointed out at the weekend, the UK vaccinated more of its population in three days than France has managed to do in total. I bet if Brexit were put to the vote now, it wouldn’t just be a four percent margin of victory: freeing ourselves from Brussels has saved lives.W

The Daily Mail

Ruth Sutherland said the demise of Topshop and Debenhams was a pivotal moment.

“Not so long ago, it would have been unimaginable that pillars of the retail scene such as Debenhams and Topshop would be reduced to nothing more than fodder for online upstarts,” she said. “While they have suffered from the pandemic and the shift to online shopping, the real reasons they have been brought low are greed and grotesque mismanagement.”

She said Debenhams had been asset stripped by a trio of private equity firms: Texas Pacific Group, CVC and Merrill Lynch Global when it was bought in 2003.

“Avarice and financial engineering also figure heavily in the collapse of [Topshop owners] Arcadia. The pandemic has brought home the need to reinvent our traditional shopping centres,” she added.