Peter Rhodes on Starmer's unknowns, traditional weather and a time of reckoning for our universities

Strangest thing. Last Thursday I kept thinking it was Tuesday. Today is Tuesday and I keep thinking it's Friday.

But then, as a number of readers have pointed out, time-keeping is the first casualty of lockdown. You rise from bed at what seems a reasonable hour, have breakfast, get down to the day's chores, have lunch and a little snooze and prepare for a lazy evening glued to the telly. And then you look at the clock. It is 11.20am.

In uncertain times like this, there are still some things you can rely on. I refer, of course, to the British weather. There may be Med-like temperatures beforehand and plenty of sunshine forecast for later on. But on the day itself our wonderful climate manages to throw up that character-forming staple of British life – a really miserable bank-holiday Monday.

Inevitably, some of the MPs chosen by Keir Starmer for his new Shadow Cabinet are unknowns. So far I have been impressed with the shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds (who?), the MP for Torfaen (where?). If you've never heard of him, take comfort from the Wales Online website which, knowing that even the Welsh don't know much about this Welsh MP, marked his rise from obscurity with: “11 things you didn't know about the Welshman who is now the Labour's shadow home secretary.” On Radio 4, Thomas-Symonds came across as articulate, well-briefed and sensible and he avoided petty point-scoring. Such a refreshing change from his predecessor. Remember her? Jeremy Corbyn's old girlfriend? Not very good with sums?

A reader writes: “I’m sure that when all this is declared over there will be a national service at Westminster Abbey, thanking God for saving us. Will that be the same God that sought fit to inflict on us this visitation of a new plague in the first place?” Good question, sir, but the God-botherers have had 2,000 years to fiddle with the small print and find an answer for every question. If all else fails, they shake their heads at the ineffable mystery of it all and tell us the Almighty moves in mysterious ways. You reckon?

Universities say they are facing a cash crisis as foreign students fail to enrol. No surprises there. How long did the unis think the brightest and best from around the world, pandemic or not, would pay £30,000 a year for courses that cost English kids £9,000? Time for a fundamental re-think.

For example, is it absolutely necessary to pay university vice-chancellors £300,000-plus? And if a first-rate professor is delivering a world-class lecture at a top college, doesn't it make more sense to livestream his performance to 100 other universities rather than those universities hiring 100 other professors? Academia is one of the few places these days where the question “Why do you do it this way?” is answered with “Because that's how we've always done it.” Those days have gone.