A great Briton
THE Sun is broken-hearted to see the symbol of Britain’s battle against Covid finally succumb to it.
Captain Sir Tom Moore personified our stoic national resilience. Yet even the Yorkshireman’s heroic fighting spirit, honed in World War Two, could not compensate for his great age and frailty when the virus struck.
Follow the latest tributes to Captain Tom Moore on our live blog…
Our hearts go out to his family.
But what a life! From his wartime service as a soldier in Burma to the extraordinary, selfless feats of his final year.
He raised a record £39million for frontline NHS workers with the sponsored walk that began in his garden and became a global event. He inspired countless others to fund-raise too.
A knighthood was just one of the accolades he richly deserved.
The veteran even topped the charts, the oldest person ever to do so.
His death adds to a UK Covid toll which is tragic and terrible. And yet Britain is also at the forefront of the global fightback . . . via our scientists and the vaccines they have invented.
We are a nation famous for our character, humour, ingenuity and resolve — and Sir Tom exemplified the lot.
RIP, Captain.
You were a truly great Briton.
Cowardly Leyen
URSULA von der Leyen is incompetent, shifty, delusional and apparently unsackable. That’s a catastrophic mix in a leader.
Under her, the EU was months too late buying vaccines. Desperate to dodge blame, it confected a row with AstraZeneca — the drug giant selflessly making jabs for the world at cost price.
Then, mortified by Brexit Britain’s vaccine success, von der Leyen tried to handicap us by blocking our imported Pfizer jabs and brainlessly throwing up a hard border that jeopardised precious peace in Northern Ireland.
She blamed an underling for that.
Now she is lying that Britain is risking public safety by vaccinating too fast . . . while also claiming the EU’s snail-paced rollout is going swimmingly.
She talks more nonsense than her predecessor Jean-Claude Juncker ever did, even after lunch. She must think EU citizens are halfwits.
The upside is that this matters so much less to Britain than it once did.
Class warriors
IF you thought Covid was the only obstacle to schools reopening, think again.
The National Education Union, which did so much to scupper the last summer term, won’t be satisfied with schools merely being safe for their members.
It won’t recommend teachers return until it sees an “end to child poverty” and total overhaul of the welfare system.
What’s next on the fantasy list of leftie blackmail demands? World peace? Marxist revolution?
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