I see in my paper that Beyoncé, who I understand to be a pop-star, has given $6m to “coronavirus relief.”  Very kind, very generous, I must say.

And she is not the only one; super rich philanthropists are for ever giving to good causes.  Sometimes donations come from surprising sources: Captain Tom Moore has raised the astonishing sum of £28.5m for the health service.  But – and it is a big but – the job of funding public health is a core responsibility of government.   No matter how generous, how well intentioned individuals are public health is not a matter to be decided by private whim.

Ten years of austerity have laid waste to huge swathes of public resources: from lay-offs and redundancies of police and army, to the failure to maintain supplies of protective equipment, and the shameful way in which nurses, health and care workers have been underpaid , under valued and in some cases, sent packing.  A few months ago I might have written that austerity achieved nothing; ten wasted years.  Writing today,  the picture has cleared: austerity has achieved a situation in which public health and security can no longer be guaranteed.

It is not simply a question of austerity, because at the same time that the nation’s resources have diminished some have prospered, prospered grotesquely.  Resources are not so much diminished as plundered.  The image of Jake Mogg, the buccaneer,  lying supine across the green benches embodies the arrogance and contempt with which such parasites regard our democratic institutions.

The same arrogance is reflected in the behaviour of other, more substantial, government ministers: they never answer a straight question; they dodge, they evade, the prevaricate. The concept of an honourable resignation is old hat: