Jabber Johnson: he says people still need to be vaccinated as the Omicron variant is “not a mild disease for everyone”.
Boris Johnson has announced that health protection regulations that he brought in to minimise the effect of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 will be ended on Thursday, January 27.
For clarity, this means:
The end of mandatory Covid passes in England, with businesses allowed to use them if they choose
Mandatory face masks will end, including in classrooms for secondary students and on public transport – meaning people will not be criminalised for choosing not to wear them
The end to work from home guidance
Restrictions on care homes will be eased, with detail to be released
However, there will still be a legal requirement to self-isolate if you test positive for Covid
As Johnson made his announcement, a Scottish MP asked: “Is the PM scrapping the rules because he doesn’t understand them?” in a harsh – but fair – comment on the prime minister’s latest “Partygate” excuse.
Johnson said his government got the tough decisions right – but did he?
He failed to identify the seriousness of Omicron when it was first reported. He didn’t close the UK’s borders; he practically invited Omicron into the country.
He failed to impose new health protection measures in time to prevent more than a million people from catching the new strain of Covid-19.
He failed to equip the NHS to take the added strain created by the two failures listed above, meaning doctors and nurses were pushed to their limit and beyond. The future of healthcare in the UK is looking bleak because these professionals will be reassessing their decision to work here.
And there is no guarantee that a Johnson government will not make the same mistakes again, if another variant of Covid-19 washes up on the UK’s shores.
Every decision Johnson has made about Covid-19 has been determined by whether a Tory, or a Tory donor, can make money from it.
This announcement merely highlights more reasons Johnson must be removed from office.
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Pack your bags, Johnson: with Tories lining up to stab him in the back, it would be prudent for the prime minister (for now) to be ready to move out of Downing Street. And he definitely shouldn’t have any parties there before going.
If there’s one thing the Tories hate, it’s a leader who becomes a liability.
Edward Heath discovered that to his cost when Margaret Thatcher stabbed him in the back.
Thatcher herself had the same treatment a decade and a half later.
Theresa May stepped down amid a clamour for her to do so, having failed to convince the nation about Brexit.
And now the knives are out for Boris Johnson – and he well deserves them!
Johnson is facing public calls for his resignation after it was revealed that a packed Christmas party took place at 10 Downing Street on December 18, 2020, when London was in Tier 3 Covid-19 restrictions and around 500 people died, forcibly separated from their loved ones.
Dr Rosena Allin-Khan summed up public feeling very well during Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday (December 8):
Prominent among Johnson’s detractors is Dominic Grieve, a former Attorney-General who was ejected from the Conservative Party for daring to criticise Johnson’s Brexit plans in 2019. Two and a half years later we can all see that Grieve, and the score of Tories who went with him, was right.
See if you don’t think he’s right about this, too, from a BBC interview yesterday. The clips overlap a little but they present his view very well:
Former Attorney General, Dominic Grieve, throws shade on Boris Johnson, exposes his weasel words and truth twisting and calls him "a consummate liar" "a serial liar who will say anything that comes into his head to get him off the hook". pic.twitter.com/uSX3AaqQcA
Tory peer and former Conservative chair Baroness Sayeeda Warsi demanded the resignations of everybody who took part in the party – in any small way, including the cover-up:
Those that make the law must obey the law. If consequences do not follow a breach of the law by law makers we send a green light to the public that laws and rules don’t matter. This is dangerous territory for us as a nation.#theruleoflaw#downingstreetpartyhttps://t.co/WgR6v2g62q
Her words, “If consequences do not follow a breach of the law by law makers we send a green light to the public that laws and rules don’t matter,” are particularly pertinent after Johnson tried to distract us all away from the Downing Street party with new rules on Covid-19.
As This Site pointed out yesterday, people are unlikely to pay attention to any new rules that don’t suit them – and defend themselves by saying they’re following the prime minister’s example.
Former Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson has also gone public with her anger – and she hasn’t been forced out of the party:
And today's "we'll investigate what we've spent a week saying didn't happen and discipline staff for rules we continue to say weren't broken" was pathetic. As a Tory, I was brought up to believe in playing with a straight bat. Believe me, colleagues are furious at this, too. 2/2
Sir Roger Gale, MP for North Thanet in Kent, told BBC Radio 4’s The World At One, “It’s worrying, isn’t it, that the man at the top of the tree doesn’t appear to know what’s going on in his own building two floors below him – I find that of concern.
“I don’t find it particularly attractive that the Prime Minister doesn’t know what’s going on in No 10 Downing Street, or doesn’t ask the right questions of his senior staff to find out what’s been going on in Downing Street, if something wrong has been going on. That’s worrying in itself.”
It indicates that he knew perfectly well what was going on but wanted to give himself at least a veneer of innocence. Well, we all know how that has turned out for him!
Duncan Baker, MP for North Norfolk, said leaked footage of Downing Street staff joking about how to cover up the party having taken place gave him great concern: “It signals such an utter lack of responsibility, whilst people throughout the country were abiding by the rules and sacrificing so much.
“There has been no proper explanation, or any effort to show understanding to how this sort of behaviour lacks empathy to how many people feel.”
Newton Abbot MP Anne Marie Morris, herself no stranger to controversy after she used racist language to discuss Brexit, tweeted: “Clearly there were rules in place that most of us were diligently following (despite how difficult they were) and they decided to break them. It’s not on and, at the very least, they should admit their blatant error and apologise for breaking the rules they imposed on society.”
Others are more cagey about being identified, but are still being reported. The following comments are from this Guardian article, for example.
“I’m blowed if I’m ever listening to No 10 on comms strategy again,” one cabinet minister said.
“My views aren’t fit for broadcast, so I will just refuse,” an ex-minister added.
Johnson’s “unreserved apology” was met with near silence. “It was lies. No one believed him. Ministers didn’t believe him. They weren’t even nodding,” the former minister said. “This is not how you do an apology. We are constantly misled – and we were still in limbo about new Covid restrictions. This would never have happened under [Theresa] May and [David] Cameron.”
The Scottish Tory leader, Douglas Ross… said [Johnson] should resign if he misled MPs. “If the prime minister knew about this party last December, knew about this party last week, and was still denying it, then that is the most serious allegation.
“There is absolutely no way you can mislead parliament and think you could get off with that. No one should continue in their post if they mislead parliament in that way.”
Reality check: we know that Johnson has been misleading Parliament since he became prime minister, if not for many years previously. Veteran columnist Peter Oborne once said he had counted 400 direct lies to Parliament in the early months of the current Parliament.
It seems this will all come to a head in North Shropshire.
The Conservatives will be defending the Parliamentary seat there next week in a by-election triggered by the corruption-related resignation of Owen Paterson last month, and even senior Tories are sharpening their knives in anticipation of the loss of what should be a safe seat.
Many Tories, including cabinet ministers, have indicated that they do not intend to help campaigning efforts in North Shropshire.
On Wednesday, the Lib Dems created a campaign leaflet contrasting a crying elderly woman last Christmas with Johnson surrounded by festive drinks. “We’re going to lose North Shropshire and it’ll all be his fault,” [a senior Tory] MP said.
Most MPs believe few have as yet submitted letters of no confidence, but said the balance could tip if the election is lost. “In the new year, minds will focus on the next election – especially those who think he won them in his seats. And they will think about whether he is the right person to take us into the next election,” one said. “Things could start to move quite quickly.”
“In the new year”?
The way things are moving now, Johnson could be out before Christmas. And it won’t be a moment too soon.
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The UK is well on-target to have more than 50,000 new Covid-19 infections per day by July 19 – when Boris Johnson insists on unlocking all lockdown restrictions and abdicating any responsibility for the consequences.
Today – July 15 – the UK recorded 48,553 new cases and 63 deaths (within 28 days of a positive test) – those are the highest levels since January 15 and March 26 respectively.
More than 1,200 scientists have signed a letter accusing the Tory government of “recklessly exposing millions to the acute and long-term impacts of mass infection”.
Branding the government’s plans “dangerous and premature”, it described Johnson’s strategy as “herd immunity by mass infection” and said that opening the country should be delayed until “everyone, including adolescents, have been offered vaccination and uptake is high”.
“A strategy that chooses mass infection in children and young people now as a way to protect the vulnerable in winter, instead of taking the time to vaccinate our young is unethical and unscientific,” the letter added.
It also said the pandemic plan risked “burdening a generation with long Covid, the long-term consequences of which are unknown”.
Lancet editor-in-chief Richard Horton has accused government Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty of “wilfully misrepresenting scientific opinion across the country”.
He said: “I found it extraordinary that the Chief Medical Officer suggested and emphasised that there was widespread agreement across the scientific community whereas in fact there is profound disagreement in the scientific community.
“He did not mention the letter… that we published, and I’m afraid I have to conclude that the Chief Medical Officer is wilfully misrepresenting scientific opinion across the country, and that is extraordinary to observe.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan has announced that the city’s transport network will continue to make wearing face masks mandatory after July 19 – and cartoonists have gleefully seized on the obvious opportunity for satire:
A SAGE expert has warned that young people in particular will suffer “acute Covid injury” – damage to their lungs and kidneys that will seriously harm their future health – due to the felaxation of social distancing restrictions:
Economist Richard Murphy raises another concern – that the decision to relax face mask rules was down to Tory vanity. He points to an article in the Financial Times, to which this tweet refers:
“The message is loud and clear,” Murphy states. “The right-wing of the Tory party want to end Covid restrictions without caring for the consequences. The government knows that this is madness, but will not rely on Labour votes to retain masks. And so, to save Boris Johnson masks must go, even if (as will happen) thousand will die as a result.
“This is democide in action.”
Read it yourself via this tweet:
Thousands are going to die to keep Boris Johnson in Number 10 https://t.co/6fDBw0As0w When even Tory commentators in the FT are saying the government policy is madness, worry
It seems thousands of people are to die because Boris Johnson is scared of his backbenchers – and too proud to rely on support from Keir Starmer – that he has enjoyed throughout the Covid-19 crisis.
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How nice to see that economic expert* Simon Wren-Lewis agrees with This Site’s appraisal of the effect on the UK of Sajid Javid’s Covid-19 policy.
In brief:
Greater strain on hospitals.
More people suffering Long Covid.
Disruption of education (mitigated by the summer holidays).
He makes an excellent point that the government has thrown away the advantages of vaccination because Boris Johnson wanted to sign a trade deal with India…
… which hasn’t happened yet.
We have a race between vaccination and the Delta variant, and the government by delaying putting India on the red list gave Delta a big head start.
This provides ideal conditions for a new variant to emerge that could seriously diminish the effectiveness of a double dose of vaccine.
So Johnson has put us in danger of being sent back to Square One, while demanding that lifting the restrictions that have saved so many of our lives will be irreversible and we’ll just have to “live with Covid” from then on.
I wonder if tribal Tory voters are still happy with their choice at the 2019 general election.
Do they even know their prime minister deliberately endangered them for the sake of a few quid?
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Still here: we may get yet another wave of Covid-19 infections because so-called ‘Covidiots’ use the lifting of some lockdown restrictions as an excuse to ignore ALL of them.
The Daily Telegraph has given everybody in the UK who doesn’t like wearing a mask for their safety and that of others an excuse to campaign against it.
“Britain will pass the threshold for herd immunity on Monday, according to dynamic modelling by University College London (UCL), placing more pressure on the Government to move faster in releasing restrictions,” states the Torygraph‘s story before mercifully disappearing behind a paywall.
Herd immunity is the idea that, if enough of the population is given immunity to a disease, then it will cease to be a danger to the population as a whole.
Boris Johnson suggested it as a way of handling Covid-19 back in March 2020 – but he completely misunderstood it, saying he thought the nation should carry on as normal and people develop the immunity by catching the disease. It was only when people started dying in huge numbers that he changed his decision and locked the UK down, fearful of the public reaction if he persisted with his nonsense claims.
In fact, herd immunity relies on vaccination, and it is true that much of the UK has now taken a first injection of a Covid-19 vaccine. This Writer’s understand was that at least 80 per cent needed to have been fully vaccinated before herd immunity could be reached, though – not the 73.4 per cent claimed by the hack rag.
Is it enough to justify the claim? Hell, no!
It’s just an attempt to support the lifting of restrictions in England that is taking place today (April 12).
The idea is to convince us all that, whatever may happen, Boris Johnson and his cronies are right to follow their lockdown-lifting timetable instead of the scientific facts which – as we have already heard – suggest that another wave of Covid infections could soon hit the UK.
❌ Masks ❌ Vaccination Passports ❌ Health Certification Status requests ❌ Name and Address Details requests ❌ Installation of NHS Track and Trace App ❌ Request for QR scan with NHS Track and Trace App https://t.co/7JNHx6mQEH
— #LoveFreedom : Defend Your Inalienable Rights 🌹 (@FreeFromTyranny) April 12, 2021
Herd immunity, whether from infections or vaccines was always the way out of this. We've kept our end of the bargain. It's time to take our freedom back. #herdimmunitymonday
— Derek Winton Reform UK Scotland (@derekwinton) April 12, 2021
The vulnerable have been vaccinated. If you still want restrictions and masks, then something is dark in your heart. Let people live their lives. #HerdImunityMonday#herdimmunitymonday
“Something is dark in your heart”? That’s a really insidious thing to say – accusing people who follow the rules of an inner evil. Isn’t it?
It’s #herdimmunitymonday . It’s all over and all restrictions need lifting now. So let’s get this trending and also time to #TakeOffYourMask if you haven’t done so already 😊
Fortunately, there is also a backlash from people who want us all to #staysafe until the crisis really is over:
Looking forward to lockdown 4.0 due to the selfish twits. To everyone that’s lost a loved one due to this virus, I’m sorry people like this exist #herdimmunitymonday
Just clicked #herdimmunitymonday out of intrigue and yeah everyone is still thick as fuck then. We haven't "achieved herd immunity" Darren mate. Far from it. You should still be wearing your mask.
It's only 08.20 and I've had enough internet for today.
See ya! ✌️♥️😷
— MATT SEEDS™ – WEAR YOUR MASK (@Seeds_ONE) April 12, 2021
Reading the #herdimmunitymonday hashtag reminds me quite how stupid a country we are.
Clicked the hashtag #herdimmunitymonday to see what it's all about….correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems as if the same people who don't believe the virus is real or contagious, also believe in herd immunity? Am I missing something, or are they really that stupid?
The worst part of this is that there will come a time when vaccination really will have done its work and herd immunity – as correctly defined – will have been reached. And that’s when these morons will come out again and claim that they were right all along.
In the meantime, though, let’s remember that some of these people have been claiming that the government will find any excuse to impose new lockdowns, keep us in our homes and wearing masks – because that keeps us under control.
It seems odd that they also seem hell-bent on providing the government with the excuse it needs.
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After the crisis, will we put up with the cover-up? For the sake of the many thousands he sent to early graves, we have a duty to hold Boris Johnson to account for his Covid-19 cock-ups.
This Writer had the first Covid-19 vaccination on Easter Sunday and within a few hours I felt terrible.
Having been warned that a tiny minority of people experience headaches, fever and/or flu-like symptoms, I was forearmed and didn’t panice. That’s the best I can say about it.
After the headache came on I retired to bed, which I found to be extremely cold – to a point where my hands and feet felt like blocks of ice, no matter what I did to warm them up. I also experienced bizarre pains in my legs.
I did get some sleep, but awoke to the onset of the flu-like symptoms and spent the day on the sofa with the cat lying on me, downing Paracetomols and sniffing (me, not the cat).
When I told my stepdaughter about this, she said, “It’s ok, it’s just your body trying to reject the DNA changes and the nanochip. Bill Gates gets all the information fed back to him, it’ll pass and you’ll be fine in no time.” It’s good to know that someone saw the funny side.
I’m writing this just before going to bed and all those symptoms have died away.
It’s a small price to pay for the protection that the vaccine promises.
With the rollout proceeding at high speed (the vaccination centre in Builth Wells was as full as social distancing would allow when I attended), Boris Johnson and his government have announced that they are proceeding with their plans to lift lockdown restrictions, according to the timetable they set some weeks ago.
Here’s what it means, according to the BBC:
More businesses will open, but indoor settings should be visited alone, or with household groups. Outside, six people or two households can meet.
All shops allowed to open
Hairdressers, beauty salons and other close-contact services can open
Restaurants and pubs allowed to serve food and alcohol to customers sitting outdoors
Gyms and spas can reopen, as can zoos, theme parks, libraries and community centres
Members of the same household can take a holiday in England in self-contained accommodation
Weddings attended by up to 15 people can take place
Funerals be attended by up to 30 people, with 15 at wakes
Children will be able to attend any indoor children’s activity
Care home visitors will increase to two per resident
Here in Wales, matters are slightly different:
All travel restrictions have been lifted within the country – residents can travel anywhere within Welsh borders
Six people from two different households (not counting children under 11) can meet and exercise outdoors and in private gardens
Organised outdoor activities and sports for children and under-18s can resume
Limited opening of outdoor areas of some historic places and gardens
Libraries and archives can reopen
Self-contained holiday accommodation, including hotels with en-suite facilities and room service, can open to people from the same household or support bubble. But non-essential travel to and from other UK nations remains banned
And then, from 12 April at the earliest:
All pupils and students return to school, college and other education
All shops and close-contact services can open
The ban on travelling in and out of Wales ends
Driving lessons can resume and some driving tests (remainder on 22 April)
In Scotland:
Outdoor mixing between four people from up to two households is already allowed, along with outdoor non-contact sports and organised group exercise.
Communal worship is also now allowed with up to 50 attending (if social distancing permits).
The stay at home became the stay local rule on 2 April.
From 5 April, hairdressers and barbers (but not mobile services) can reopen for pre-booked appointments; more shops can reopen and non-essential click-and-collect can resume; outdoors non-contact group sports for 12 to 17-year-olds can resume.
12-19 April:
All pupils back at school full-time
And in Northern Ireland:
People can now meet for exercise in groups of up to 10 from two households
Golf and other outdoor sporting activities can resume (although clubhouses and sports facilities must stay closed)
Six people from two households can meet in a private garden
Garden centres can operate click-and-collect services
From 12 April:
Remaining school year groups 8-11 return (Years 1-3, 4-7 and 12-14 have already returned)
Stay-at-home message relaxed
All other non-essential retail can operate click-and-collect
Sports training with up to 15 people can resume
Up to 10 people from two households can meet in a private garden
It all seems very optimistic.
Personally, I’m hoping it all works out because I am sick to the back teeth of being stuck at home.
But I don’t want us to forget that we have paid a terrible, terrible price, just to get to this point.
Our government, in whom the nation placed its trust in December 2019, failed us abjectly – and the number of deaths so far is greater than many recognised genocides including:
The Romani genocide in Nazi-occupied Europe (130,000 at its lowest estimate).
The Polish genocide (around 110,000 at lowest estimate).
Idi Amin’s Ugandan genocide, the Rohingya genocide, and the genocides in Darfur, East Timor, Bosnia, Croatia, and California.
I use the lowest estimates because, of course, the number of deaths currently known in the UK is also a lowest estimate. It will be a long time before we get the final figure.
It is already horrifying enough, though:
What a searing, unforgivable milestone 😔
Today’s @ONS statistics show a staggering 150,116 people have now died of Covid.
These deaths were not inevitable. Not predestined. These people didn’t have to die.
Boris Johnson avoided dealing with Covid-19 when the pandemic first arrived in the UK. He avoided briefings and refused to take the decisions we needed, to restrict the spread of the virus.
Because he wanted it to spread through the population and kill where it could. He said as much in a TV interview in March last year.
It was his great “herd immunity” fallacy.
Ever since, he has been too keen to lift lockdown early and too reluctant to impose it again.
He has relied on a heavy propaganda campaign, intended to whitewash his decisions by claiming that the UK’s response to Covid-19 has been successful when it hasn’t.
And while he has said he is willing to have an inquiry into his government’s handling of the pandemic, he has demanded that it will only happen “at the appropriate time”, inducing some of us to believe that, for him, the appropriate time is “never”.
Alternatively, he’ll just fob us off with a government-scripted whitewash, like we’ve seen in his “racism report” last month.
He will never accept responsibility for the huge death toll he has caused.
And that means it’s up to us to pin it onto him.
But will we?
I’m concerned that the Great British Public will let him off the hook.
We have a deplorable tendency to forget about terrible injustices, pretty much the instant after we’ve had a good complain about it.
We shout at the television during the news, but how many of us actually do anything about the cause of that rage afterwards?
You know I’m right.
I can think of 150,116 people who would demand that Johnson and his government be held to account – if only they could communicate with us from beyond the grave.
They can’t so we should.
Whatever happens, it is our duty to demand justice for the multitude who died when they should not have died – because an ignorant, selfish part-time politician could not do his job properly.
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You have to laugh at these desperate attempts to justify Boris Johnson’s decision to ride his bike around the Olympic Park in London – seven miles from 10 Downing Street.
Met Police Commissioner Cressida Dick actually went on the radio and said if people exercise “from your front door and come back to your front door”… “That’s my view of local.”
Great!
This Writer is not best-located to mock this point of view as I live in one of the UK’s biggest cycling hubs, with routes flying in all directions around Mid Wales.
But if I didn’t; if I lived in a place that was 10 miles away from a cycle track – or more – and I wanted to do a bit of pedalling, it’s nice to know that Cressida Dick would fully support my decision to do so – cycling all the way there, round the track as often as I wanted, and then back home again.
That’s her view of local.
She was basically saying we can go out as far as we like, for as long as we like.
That is entirely against the demands of the current lockdown. And she is the commissioner of London’s police force.
The guidance states very clearly that, while you can travel a short distance within your area to do so if necessary (for example, to access an open space)… “stay local means stay in the village, town, or part of the city where you live”.
Admittedly, living in Mid Wales, I’m not as familiar with London as many.
But I feel sure there are a few open spaces in central London and there was no need for Johnson to go seven miles.
So I can’t help but wonder whether anyone now facing fines for break lockdown guidance now has another excuse.
Besides saying, “Dominic Cummings,” they’ll now be able to say, “Boris Johnson.”
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“Perfectly safe”: this photo was taken on a school staircase after Boris Johnson ruled that it was “perfectly safe” for children to go back there in September – no social distancing, no PPE… not safe at all.
Is everybody happy to be back in lockdown – or at least, in more serious Covid-19 related restrictions – thanks to Tory incompetence, yet again?
And are you all happy that the new restrictions announced by Boris Johnson and his government won’t make a scrap of difference because he refuses, point-blank, to stop the most common cause of Covid-19 infections?
What I mean is when the latest restrictions are relaxed, we’ll all be as vulnerable to Covid infection as before, because Johnson won’t close the schools.
Schools account for almost 40% of all new infections.
That's some ridiculous propaganda you're spreading there.
It is obvious – and has been since long before Johnson announced that schools would be reopened for the autumn term in September – that schools should stay closed for the duration. And we all know that Johnson triggered the huge autumn rise in infections because of this simple omission from his plans.
Not opening schools until full testing was available was one.
We’ve been living with a false economy for this entire thing with both parties chasing front pages rather than long term success.
Aaron Bastani’s comment that both main political parties must take responsibility, because they both chased headlines and tried to court public approval rather than doing the right thing, is correct:
Rebecca Long-Bailey should hold a press conference in which she says "I told you so" to Keir Starmer, after he ignored her warnings about re-opening schools before it was safe to do so. Then sacked her. https://t.co/xu4mYlIf4M
— Frank Owen's Legendary Paintbrush (@WarmongerHodges) December 20, 2020
But ultimate responsibility lies with the government of the day:
Boris Johnson should resign, absolute waste of space. Please can we stop electing entitled, silver spoon posh boys who think they can fuck everything up and get away with it?
Trouble is, Johnson’s resignation won’t change anything because his Tory government will go on – and will continue risking the lives of thousands of people – with their dishonest policies.
All I wish for Christmas is that Boris Johnson's government would stop being incompetent and corrupt – and lying to me – for a just a few days pic.twitter.com/w1qlCEc0ga
After more than a year of Covid-19 lies, the Tories can’t go back to the facts because then they would have to provide recompense for all the suffering and death that they deliberately caused.
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I have a friend who has been convinced that the whole of the UK will be in lockdown again from around December 27. This announcement suggests to me that he is right.
The UK’s four nations have agreed to allow “limited additional household bubbling” so families can get together for Christmas, the UK government has announced
But any loosening of coronavirus restrictions will only be in place for “a small number of days”.
The Sun reported that festive bubbles could allow up to four households to mix for five days.
Yes indeed. We’ll probably be on lockdown straight away afterwards. Mixing with lots of other family members is bound to spread Covid and you can bet Johnson has been advised that he needs to isolate everybody until they know whether they’ve been infected or not.
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Tory chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced a new support package for English areas under Tier 2 Covid-19 restrictions in a move that seems time to snub Greater Manchester.
The north-west English area had been under Tier 2 restrictions until earlier this week, when Sunak’s government forced it into Tier 3 with a financial support package that has been vilified as punitive and unfair.
Now the BBC is reporting:
Rishi Sunak announced big changes to the Job Support Scheme (JSS) – set to replace furlough in November.
Businesses in tier two areas, particularly in the hospitality sector, had complained that they would be better off if they were under tier three restrictions.
Sunak delivered his announcement in the House of Commons:
It is clear that "open but struggling businesses require further support," says Chancellor Rishi Sunak
"We are doubling the next round of the self-employed income support [scheme] from 20% to 40% of people’s incomes. Increasing the maximum grant to £3,750”
Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham was unimpressed – and even that usually-staunch supporter of the Tories, the BBC’s Laura Kuennsberg, had to agree that he made a fair point:
Perhaps not an unfair question…. govt was refusing to budge on giving GM an extra 5 million on Tues, when today's plan (surely) must have been in the mix
“Hello? We’ve been under these restrictions for three months”
Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham says he was left “open-mouthed" by reports Chancellor Rishi Sunak is to unveil more support for tier 2 businesses, "billed… for London and Birmingham"https://t.co/AVi6S4rqRkpic.twitter.com/KtB9NkSCQJ
Anthony Browne, the Tory MP appearing on the day’s edition of the BBC’s Politics Live, tried to justify the timing of the announcement:
#RishiSunak announces new deal to help people cope with #Covid19UK – days after no agreement with #AndyBurnham over #GreaterManchester because of the lack of such measures. "It takes time" to evolve these policies, says Tory on #PoliticsLive – so it could've been given to Burnham
If it takes time to evolve a policy change like that which Sunak announced in Parliament, then that means it would certainly have been under discussion when the talks with Burnham were taking place.
So it also follows that the Conservatives holding those discussions – like Robert Jenrick, who spewed such a lot of nonsense about it earlier in the week – deliberately failed to mention it to Burnham.
Why?
The only reason that I can see would be to corruptly engineer a financial disadvantage for the Labour-voting people of Greater Manchester.
Once again, it seems, the Conservatives are using the Covid-19 crisis for their own selfish political gain.
How utterly despicable.
I am glad to see that the £2,100 per month grant is retrospective and may be backdated to August 2.
I hope hospitality businesses in Greater Manchester use it to take as much as they can from Sunak and his twisted government.
Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.
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