Cruel omission
THE scenes from the day of Prince Philip’s funeral could barely be more contrasting.
On one hand, the Queen, alone in her grief on the empty pews as she waited to bid a final farewell to her husband.
Read our Prince Philip funeral live blog for the latest updates
On the other, groups of grinning young revellers arm in arm, enjoying a first weekend out since lockdown’s easing.
It summed up the ongoing cruelty of Covid regulations for mourners, which hundreds of thousands have endured.
The weekend also saw hundreds of snooker fans let into the Crucible, and 4,000 fans at Wembley for the FA Cup semi-final.
On May 2, a concert in Liverpool will ditch social distancing.
Yet no date is set for further easing of restrictions on the UK’s 10,000 funerals a week, depriving many of those bereaved of a comforting hug from loved ones, regardless of vaccinations or tests.
We agree with TV presenter Kirstie Allsopp that this cannot be right.
It’s great the Government is letting the good times roll again, after a bleak year.
But surely it can show a little humanity to those going through bad times too.
Chump League
AS ideas to suck the fun out of football go, it’s pretty hard to top UEFA’s ambition for a tediously enlarged Champions League.
The move by England’s “Big Six” clubs to join a breakaway European Super League blows it out of the water by some distance.
The proposed closed shop would be nothing short of a sledgehammer to England’s football pyramid.
Don’t these owners see the last thing their fans want is an American-style end to the prospect of relegation or promotion, with no fairytale triumphs for a Leicester or a Blackburn?
Scathingly, Gary Neville called for the Premier League to kick out his beloved Man U, with Liverpool and Arsenal, if they indulge this scheme.
We know most fans of these clubs, along with those of Man City, Spurs and Chelsea, will share his distaste.
They prize the cut and thrust of genuine competition above a naked cash grab.
Vex factor
MORE than most, sharp-tongued Sharon Osbourne is able to take care of herself.
But the repellent abuse the former X Factor judge has received on social media from trolls — for merely defending Piers Morgan’s right to criticise Meghan Markle — is something nobody should have to deal with.
You have to marvel at the warped logic of woke warriors who, professing to be affronted by Sharon’s supposed lack of empathy for the Duchess of Sussex, then went on to threaten to slit Sharon’s throat in her sleep, and poison her dogs.
The threats are no doubt empty bluster but must be terrifying nonetheless.
It’s long past time that “cancel culture” and its vicious exponents were cancelled.
