‘They may take our lives, but they’ll never take our Dress Circle tickets to see Phantom'

With the threatened delay of the UK’s ‘Freedom Day’ from Lockdown, many citizens have taken to the streets to demand cheap package holidays, karaoke and universal suffrage – only kidding with that last one, they just want half-price cocktails. Said one agitator: ‘Nobody wants basic human rights, but we do want West End theatre tickets?’

Strangely, as a nation, we now equate freedom with the chance to see ‘Cats’ on stage, ideally discounted, with a restricted view. While Nelson Mandela’s long walk to freedom took 27 years, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s took 30 seconds, from the stroll from his Rolls Royce to the stage door.

As Julian Assange sits in his prison cell, he must consider himself lucky, compared to those oppressed citizens who now have to wear a face mask in Aldi. In the last decade we have happily surrendered civil liberties and freedom of expression, but as the NRA says: ‘I'll only use sanitizer when you put it on my cold, dead hands’.

Said one concerned citizen: ‘It’s delay after delay, we also had a Freedom Day for leaving the EU but that was delayed by several decades. I don’t mind waiting a few years to hug my family, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to miss out on front row seats to see ‘Dear Evan Hansen’.’

Big business pens open letter to Johnson over 'Freedom Day' postponement

A group of super rich businessmen and women has written an open letter to Boris Johnson, expressing fury at yesterday's climbdown, in not granting England its long-awaited 'Freedom Day'.

One magnate said: 'Is this the bulldog spirit? Can we allow what is clearly the greatest country in the world to be held to ransom by some sneaky underhand nasty foreign bug?'

'And don't talk to me about suffering. I have personally lost millions of pounds worth of value from my companies, leaving me with only a few billion in the bank. How am I to make ends meet? I'm facing ruin here.'

While another complained. 'It might seem like our group is motivated purely by colossal greed for monstrously massive self gains. It could perhaps appear that we're quite happy to play Russian Roulette with the lives of our workforces.'

'Well, perish the thought. Nothing could be further from the truth. You can certainly trust me on that score too. What's more, I am thinking very seriously of implementing the minimum wage across all my business, as well as abolishing zero hours contracts too.'

Meanwhile the former 'Quiet Man' of politics, Iain Duncan Smith, is said to be enraged by the PM's capitulation in the face of the overwhelming medical advice and evidence. An insider said that IDS was "going to jolly well do something about it" assuming he can find anyone of importance, influence or clout prepared to listen to him.