'The world is teetering on a very sharp knife edge...cool heads and cool minds are needed'

You know those days when all is quiet and you’re managing to get by with your day-to-day existence?

There haven’t been many of those in 2020!

And since the weekend things have become very busy on a global scale: first with the announcement of a new President-Elect in the United States; the announcement of a new vaccine which might offer us our best chance yet of seeing off the ravages of Covid-19; the beginning of 11th hour trade deal negotiations around Brexit; and now senior members of the armed forces here warning that if we’re not careful we could be looking at World War Three shortly.

Is it any wonder we tend to keep our heads down and concentrate on the cracks in the pavement?

The news of Joe Biden becoming POTUS-elect has been received with mixed views in the UK. Almost as soon as the news began to filter through there were those who countered what seemed to be a breaking wave of delight by saying that the Biden administration might not see the ‘special relationship’ with Britain as being that special, and particularly so when considering our dealings over the now imminent Brexit.

Many will have seen the footage of a beaming Biden declaring “I’m Irish!” Plenty are now wondering what it means for any future deals between not two, but three countries.

In the meantime, the Trump campaign has hunkered down (perhaps that should read ‘bunkered down’, with the current president heading to his golf course for a round or three) for a blitzkrieg of legal challenges, recount demands and general lashing out, some of it within its own ranks.

This is nowhere near over and we seem to be heading for a messy time in American politics on all levels.

The announcement of the Pfizer vaccine which claims to have a 90 per cent potency against Covid-19 was by far the bigger talking point on Monday.

Instantaneously, stock markets rocketed upwards on expectations that global trade might swiftly return to something looking like normality... until Boris Johnson, backed by the scientists, re-shaped those expectations that the vaccine would be either a) available soon, or b) available to all from the start.

It was interesting that Joe Biden confirmed he’d been tipped off about the news the day before it broke – as was the news on social media that the Trump camp clearly hadn’t been and was therefore unable to use it in pre-election campaigning.

For the rest of us across the globe, there is now the race – commercially, politically and socially – to secure in volume whatever vaccine becomes available.

There’s also extreme pressure to short circuit the usual testing and development stages that would ordinarily take many years to run their normal course.

It’s been reported that certain vaccines have already been deployed with far less testing than would otherwise be declared safe, such, apparently, is the desperation to turn the tide of global infection and death we’ve witnessed.

Perhaps we ought not to be surprised by this, maybe it’s indicative of global tensions.

As for Brexit and World War Three, one is a certainty and the other would be a catastrophe for all nations.

We’re now in a chapter of our times where what is needed are measured actions and a willingness on all sides which transcends borders, be they ideological, economic or physical to collaborate.

There’s also the need for good global stewardship, for which you should read good leadership.

There’s a sense right now that the world is teetering on a very sharp knife edge.

Cool heads, calm minds.