London Diary: No Indians, please

After nearly six months of total shutdown, Britain partially reopened this week but the cries of "freedom at last" were drowned by warnings that a "third wave" of Covid might be brewing, fuelled by the dreaded and rapidly-spreading Indian variant of the virus which has been detected in several parts of the country, mostly around London.

More than 100 cases of B.1.617.2 --the deadliest of the three Indian variants--have been reported amid fears that it could eventually overtake the local variant which caused such havoc last winter and led to the shutdown.

"The margin between a third wave and a summer of freedom looks tight," wrote The Sunday Times as Boris Johnson warned of "significant disruption" to plans for a return to normal life next month.

His government has been criticised for taking too long to ban travel from India allowing some 20,000 potential carriers of the virus to enter Britain. It was only in late April that the ban was imposed. By then the damage had already been done.

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Labouring to nowhere

Britain's Labour Party is in turmoil after its rout in recent regional elections which saw it lose some of its supposedly most invincible strongholds to the Tories. Particularly shameful was its defeat in the parliamentary bye-election in Hartlepool which had always returned a Labour candidate since the constituency was created in 1974.

The elections were the first big test of the party's newish leader Keir Starmer, and he flunked it big time, raising questions about his lacklustre leadership style and a lack of vision.

With his aloof, touch-me-not mien, he has failed to enthuse even his own ranks, let alone voters who expect their leaders to exude warmth and empathy. They find him too dull and bureaucratic in sharp contrast to his rival Boris Johnson's flamboyance and infectious joie de vivre.

One unnamed "Labour insider" was quoted as saying: "Keir Starmer is the perfect husband, but you just wouldn’t want to have sex with him.”

After Gordon Brown, Ed Miliband, and Jeremy Corbyn, he is the fourth successive failed Labour leader and together they have brought the party to the brink of an existential crisis. The question on everyone's mind is: what is the point of Labour?

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Pup therapy

Feeling stressed? Suffering from anxiety? Try stroking a dog, and all that stress and anxiety could magically vanish. Studies have shown that it works wonders, especially for students struggling with work pressures ahead of exams; or candidates preparing for job interviews.

Some British universities have started using "therapy dogs" to help students cope with pre-exam jitters after researchers claimed that "pup therapy" was more effective than conventional approaches. The theory is that everyone likes stroking a dog.

"The dog can quietly sit there and make meaningful eye contact with the student, and let them pet it all over. And the students tell us they feel really good," according to Patricia Pendry, from Washington State University.

Some believe it's not just dogs. Playing with any animal brings mental and emotional equanimity in an age of man-induced suffering.

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Love "DC"

David Cameron says he is in the habit of signing off all his text messages with the words, "Love DC", and no special meaning should be read into it.

Asked by a parliamentary inquiry panel, looking into his role in a lobbying scandal, whether it was appropriate for him to use such intimate language in ostensibly formal correspondence with senior government officials, he said: "With anyone I know even at all well, I tend to sign off text messages with ‘love DC’. I don’t know why, I just do. My children tell me that you don’t need to sign off for text messages at all and it’s very old-fashioned. But anyway, that’s what I do.”

The context was a "love" laced text message he had sent to a senior treasury official seeking a favour from him for a company he worked for after ceasing to be prime minister. At least one member of the committee sniggeringly suggested that it revealed an unusual level of intimacy between a former PM and an incumbent official.

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Bell to toll no more

A 450-year-old British bell foundry which produced the famous Big Ben is to be closed down and converted into a boutique hotel by its new owners, a group of US venture capitalists.

The decision has provoked a public backlash, including from leading artists, and a petition to save the Whitechapel Bell Foundry has gained nearly 30,000 signatures.

Founded in 1570, it is thought to be the oldest manufacturing business in the UK and is regarded as part of the country's cultural heritage which deserves to be preserved.

Sir Charles Saumarez-Smith, a former head of the Royal Academy, asked: “Is a hotel for foreign tourists more important than a bit of living history?"

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And, lastly, Tony Blair who won three general elections as Labour leader, has said the party needs "total deconstruction and reconstruction" if it is to win power again.