Politicians across Europe are currently trying to work out what to do amidst Covid cases rising yet again as the colder weather arrives. Austria have gone into a full lockdown, with all “non-essential stores” closed. The Republic of Ireland are imposing a midnight curfew on nightclubs and weddings, whereas the Netherlands want you out of the club by 8pm.

But in Northern Ireland? They’re trying to both relax and harden the rules at the same time. The Executive met yesterday to talk about imposing new restrictions amidst case numbers that simply refuse to go down – they’ve been hovering at around 1600 cases per day for a few weeks.

New rules being considered include tougher enforcement of wearing face masks and insisting more people work from home. Vaccine passports are due to come in force next week – although enforcement won’t begin until December 13th. But what were MLAs being asked to do over at Stormont yesterday?

Well, they were being asked to rubber stamp a number of relaxations previously made by the Executive. Which would be the very same Executive that now wants to put in place new restrictions.

Words fail me. For once…

Credit to the Belfast Telegraph for first picking up this story.