Mick Channon: they've frightened the country and expect us to go back to normal

For those of you who prefer your truths polished, varnished and locked away in a glass case, this may be a good time to stop reading. Mick Channon doesn't bother with varnish. "I've never been a patient man or a member of the diplomatic corps," he confirms, although those of us who have followed his maverick career with interest since he first pulled on a Southampton shirt fully five decades ago will need no such confirmation.

Of late he has had plenty of time to think and has formulated several full-blooded opinions, many of them on the state of Britain during lockdown, still more on the best way out of lockdown for a busy racehorse trainer and a broader population still contained under the yoke of Covid-19.

Many of his views are surprisingly indulgent and forgiving, but every now and then both barrels are emptied with intent. We may now be clambering out of an economic ditch, and racing may be leading the way for the entire sporting world, but race meetings with no crowds are barely half the solution, Britain is still fighting shy of a return to normality and the blame for such timidity is apportioned robustly and without equivocation.