Coronavirus diary, Saturday 16 May

Politicians, like journalists, are not the most trusted professionals, but I am starting to feel sorry for our government and the motley crew of ministers. Whatever they do is criticised and they get scant praise when they get things right. In these critical days with so much uncertainly it is getting worse for them. 

The latest example is their plan for more children in England to go back to school next month. No one can be certain if it is the right decision, if it is safe for children, teachers and other school workers. The decision, like all the others being taken day by day by the government to defeat the virus, is based on expert advice with which they are almost inundated. 

Following on immediately from the care homes furore we have another bitter, dangerous  battle, all the more divisive as it is coloured by politics which should have no part in it.
The teachers unions are almost all united in their opposition with the doctors' major organisation supporting their view that there is still doubt which should be clarified. The government can point to the experience of schools that have carried on, reducing class sizes and trying to meet the safe distance rules. Even parents who are teachers are divided. 

As usual, the papers make it a black or white - red or blue - issue, with a typical headline, Schools to defy unions and open next month. Another complication: many private schools have from the start introduced sophisticated reality teaching with teachers in touch with their individual pupils, continuing the set curriculum. My grandson is even taking his school examinations this week. Disadvantaged children, on the other hand, are losing months of education which they will probably never make up.

Back  to  politics. Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader is treading a treacherous path. He has the right and the duty to criticise the government even in this almost wartime scene but should do so without crossing that indefinable political line. I don't envy him, or the government.