COVID-19 UK Political Analysis by Tim Hames – 7th August 2020

Nothing much ever happens in August. There have, admittedly, been a few minor exceptions to this rule; these include the outbreak of the Great War (1914), the dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan forcing its surrender in World War II (1945), the first resignation of an American President (1974), the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq (1990) and an attempted coup in the Soviet Union which ultimately led to the dissolution of the USSR and the de facto end of the Cold War (1991). Apart from that, little of note.

The understandable concern at the outset of this August is that a second wave or spike of the coronavirus will join this list of exceptions to the general anonymity of the eighth month of the year. The international outlook remains grave, with many very sizeable countries still not through the first round of the virus never ready for any repeat of it. There have been some spectacular flare-ups in an array of locations from Australia to Spain. In the UK, the city of Leicester found itself excluded from the lifting of the lockdown as regards bars, pubs and restaurants for two further weeks. Blackburn became the cause of high alert. Much of Greater Manchester had restrictions on the indoor meetings of separate households re-imposed and, perhaps most strikingly of all, the city of Aberdeen now faces the return of many of the limitations on life that lockdown had involved for at least seven days. Will this be a long, hot and difficult August?