Political column – January 18

What next for Boris Johnson? Growing a beard?

Flybe, a lame duck company, has been given new wings after a rescue package which has the government's fingerprints all over it. The desirability of retaining internal UK air links has trumped the Tories' ingrained ideology which makes them nervous about sticking their oar in when it comes to struggling private companies.

Turn the clock back to the early 1970s and Ted Heath's policy was one of refusing to help lame ducks. But some lame ducks are bigger and more important than others, and when the strategically vital and quintessentially British firm of Rolls-Royce was on the brink of collapse, Ted had to perform a humiliating U-turn.

Despite the blast from the owner of British Airways that the Flybe deal is "a blatant misuse of public funds," this is pragmatic politics of the sort Boris Johnson can get away with thanks to a large majority and a weak opposition, whose leader Jeremy Corbyn can't be that much bothered about it because he didn't raise it at Prime Minister's Questions, nor did any other MP.

Instead his line of questioning was about a "precious British institution" with record waiting times which forces elderly gentlemen to stagnate on hospital trollies for hours and hours.

Of course Mr Corbyn didn't link his themes of the NHS being a wonderful institution which is falling apart quite like that, but it is one of those contradictions that those politicians who talk so highly of the NHS also often in the next breath give evidence of it providing a substandard service.

Mr Corbyn is keeping his place on the opposition front bench warm while the party decides on his successor, and now we know the candidates to succeed him.

They are, if you don't know, rich posh toff (oops, sorry, correction: toolmaker's son) Sir Keir Starmer, Rebecca the Red Long-Bailey, working class from Wigan Lisa Nandy, gobby Brummie Jess Phillips, and her ladyship Emily Thornberry.

The next Labour leader will be decided through a method of elimination in coming weeks, which is probably the best way in the circumstances.

Also in the session Ian Blackford called Boris a democracy denier, which is a bit rich as the reason he wants another referendum on Scottish independence is that he didn't like the result of the first one.

Meanwhile many eyebrows have been quite rightly raised after it was revealed that the former Speaker John Bercow spent £12,000 in his final months on staff leaving parties, and claimed £1,000 on expenses for a taxi fare for a 260-mile round trip from London to Nottingham.

This is shocking. That poor taxi driver seems to have been outrageously underpaid. Well, would you want John Bercow in the back seat of your taxi?

This payment should not be considered as a fare, but as compensation for the driver.

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The unprecedented royal crisis which prompted this week's crunch Sandringham summit is a seismic catastrophe which has rocked the nation.

Not one person in the land has been untouched by this unfolding disaster and a sense of disappointment and doom is etched on every face, from Dawley High Street to the wine bars of Bilston.

This is a cruel blow for the Queen who is now a lady in her 90s, which shakes the foundations of the monarchy. It is a matter of the utmost importance which must be resolved satisfactorily as the reputation of everything and everybody is at stake and we can't have this sort of thing happening here.

Americans, not mentioning any names, just don't know how we Brits do things.

The announcement by Prince Harry and Meghan left the nation collectively white-faced with shock in the biggest upset since Edward and Mrs Simpson took the British establishment to the brink of collective collapse.

As we teeter on the edge of the chasm, I really must see a medic as I'm not bothered about it anything like as much as I think I'm supposed to be.

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Wolverhampton Grammar School says that by doing away with textbooks and using iPads instead, it is preparing its students for the future.

What a grim vision of the future. iPads already give children a portal into a world of crime, grooming, anti-social media, bullying, addiction, and virtual friendship.

Based on soaring mental health problems, this has to be one of the most unhappy young generations in history, and one in which our children have willingly enslaved themselves.

The school says its students are still able to write "in the old fashioned way." But writing isn't a fashion. Obsolescence is so rapid with new technology that all tech items are fashion items, out-of-date in a heartbeat.

In any event, Britain was made great by fee-paying schools upholding character-forming traditions, such as cold showers and early morning runs. Write out 100 times – longhand.