Mark Andrews: Darth times, low expectations, and an extreme approach to social distancing

A lottery winner in Jamaica turned up to collect his £480,000 cheque dressed up as Darth Vader. Apparently, he chose the elaborate outfit to conceal his identity, which came as a surprise to me. I assumed he was just complying with the latest PPE guidance from the Government.

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Talking of government guidance, a lady in Crawley seems to be taking this social distancing thing a bit far.

Footage has emerged of her berating a young man for going within two metres of her – in his car.

As the man pulled up alongside her at traffic lights, Mrs Angry let rip, wagging her finger as she accused him of putting her at risk and threatening to call the police.

She might have felt a bit safer if she closed her car window. And I suspect shouting at somebody in close proximity is a pretty effective way of spreading the virus.

So my sympathies lay with the young man, until I learned what he did for a living. He is a traffic warden.

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Which is interesting, because he told reporters he used his mobile phone to record the incident while behind the wheel of his car.

Which we are constantly being told it is a very serious offence. And certainly more serious than parking a few minutes over your allotted time.

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The Social Market Foundation says the Government should 'let high street shops die', and convert empty units into homes.

To be honest, looking at the number of horrible 'houses of multi-occupancy' – or hostels, as they used to be called – springing up in every down-at-heel corner of our towns, I thought that had been the policy for years.

But town centres that have no shops, just housing, are not towns at all. They are estates.

And the main reason why towns are struggling is not because people have a great yearning to buy goods they have never seen from people they have never met, and have them left on the doorstep while they are at work. It is because the punitive business rates imposed on town-centre businesses mean they are unable to compete with overseas tax-avoiding giants operating from out-of-town warehouses, not to mention the characterless foreign-owned out-of-town malls.

If our towns are allowed to die, it will not only lead to a loss of our social fabric, it will also mean the end of the cash cow which which comes with those excessive rates. On top of that, it will destroy our pensions and investments which are heavily tied up in retail property, meaning a shorter and poorer retirement for most of us.

Not so, I suspect, for the Social Market Foundation's policy board. I'm sure Baroness Kramer, Baron Stevenson of Coddenham, MPs Stephen Kinnock and Lt Col Tom Tugendhat, and Tony Blair's biographer John Rentoul all have a few bob tucked away for a rainy day.

The question is, though, which of these will be first to move into a converted green-grocer's in Barnsley? Don't all rush at once.