Is this plan for daily Covid testing of MPs simply to shore up support for Johnson?
Speaker: Lindsay Hoyle in action.
Why is the Commons Speaker, who is supposed to be neutral, suggesting a plan to re-fill Parliament with braying Boris Johnson loyalists?
Johnson made a fool of himself at Prime Minister’s Questions last week when his pre-scripted attack on Keir Starmer about a spurious connection with terrorism exposed him to ridicule.
Some commentators said Johnson was finding it hard to stand up to Starmer without the support of hundreds of Tory backbenchers behind him, egging him on.
So now Lindsay Hoyle has proposed a plan to pack the screaming mob back in:
MPs could be tested daily for coronavirus to allow them to safely fill the chamber of the House of Commons, the Speaker has suggested.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle told Times Radio he had spoken to the NHS and government about getting “a quick turnaround of tests” to allow more MPs in.
Of course, some of us have been asking why MPs have been saying it is safe for our children to be packed back into schools when they are still working from home because they fear catching the virus so much.
It is possible that a return to full attendance at the House of Commons will encourage some of them to claim that it was a silly criticism.
If so, we’ll have to remind them that the situation isn’t the same – because I don’t see the government authorising daily testing of every school attendee. Do you?
Source: Coronavirus: Test MPs for Covid-19 every day, says Speaker – BBC News
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They also need random drug and alcohol testing
Oh they really do!
Daily Covid tests on 650 MPs works out at 13, 000 per working month. Wonder how that will play in parts of Britain with zero test kits for anyone? Bearing in mind the centralisation of resources in outbreak hot spots….
Might blow up in their well-fed faces, that.
Or, there might, anyway, be a major outbreak in the House, what with clouds of SpAds, researchers and mutant algorithm scribblers untested.
Not to mention hosts of elderly Lords….
We are living in “interesting times” as the Chinese curse goes.