THE vaccine delay, calls for a public inquiry and cow hugging were the topics debated by columnists in the newspapers.

The Daily Express

Ross Clark said the latest threat by Ursula von der Leyen to block exports of the Pfizer vaccine to Britain should come as no surprise.

“Ursula von der Leyen has been under continued pressure to put right the EU’s error in being too late to order jabs and ordering too few,” he said.

“If the EU bans exports of the Pfizer vaccine to Britain it will impact on the speed of the UK inoculation programme.

“So far, Pfizer has accounted for just under a quarter of all shots delivered.”

He said seizing Pfizer’s output won’t help the EU catch up.

“Even with the AstraZeneca vaccine the EU had little prospect of immunising its population before the possibility of another wave of Covid-19 next winter.

“With public confidence in AstraZeneca now shattered, it faces a very grim winter next year.”

The Guardian

Stephen Dorrell said the government was still procrastinating over whether to establish a public inquiry.

“It’s now eight months since the prime minister promised the House of Commons there would be an “independent” inquiry,” he said.

“In July he said it was not “the right moment to devote huge amounts of official time to an inquiry”. This week, the business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said it would be “premature” to launch an inquiry, and that reopening the economy was the government’s main priority.”

He said the attitude of ‘defensive introspection’ has been at the heart of policy failures throughout the pandemic.

“The case for a public inquiry into the pandemic is therefore not simply a desire to work out who knew what and when, but to address fundamental questions about the way Britain is governed.”

The Daily Mail

Craig Brown said lockdown had given rise to all sorts of bizarre practices, including the latest - cow hugging.

“Over in the US, farms are charging anything up to $75 an hour for cow-hugging sessions,” he said.

“[One] owner, Suzanne Vullers, reports that the coronavirus pandemic has caused a huge increase in demand.”

He said his own experience with cows is at odds with the habit.

“Where I live in Suffolk, cows tend to be more stand-offish, or, worse, stand-on-ish,” he said. “Walking through the meadows near our house, I often look over my shoulder, only to discover anything up to 50 cows behind me, indulging in a particularly perverse form of grandmother’s footsteps.

“At this point, only a Dutchman would say: ‘Fancy a cuddle?’ The rest of us take to our heels.”