Inside Politics: Boris Johnson to divide England into three tiers

The prime minister will finally reveal a new system for local restrictions, but leaders in the north are angry at the way curbs are being imposed, writes Adam Forrest

Boris Johnson outside No 10 (AFP via Getty Images)

Halloween is only a couple of weeks away. If you’re looking for a really scary costume, you could do worse than the monstrous, two-faced creature which appeared on the front pages of one of the Sunday papers – half Boris, half Thatcher. Some leaders in the north are afraid the “new Maggie” at No 10 is taking us back to the horrors of the 1980s – when mass unemployment stalked the land and whole regions were written off. As the PM finally lifts the veil on his new system for local lockdowns today, he has to reassure spooked council chiefs the spectre of Thatcherism is a figment of their imagination.

Inside the bubble

Our policy correspondent on what to look out for today:

Boris Johnson will chair a Cobra meeting this morning before revealing the new system for regional restrictions in the Commons – followed by a press conference later this afternoon. NHS officials will give evidence to the public accounts committee on the supply of ventilators. Culture secretary Oliver Dowden will be doing the morning media round for the government, while Labour leader Keir Starmer does another LBC phone-in at 9am.

Daily briefing

TIERS OF A CLOWN: England is about to be divided up into three parts – medium, high and very high risk – under the new system announced by the PM today. It looks almost certain that the Liverpool city region is headed for very high, tier three status. And reports suggest this means all household mixing will stop, and pubs and gyms will close – but restaurants could be allowed to stay open. Status reviews will take place every four weeks, and local authorities are said to be getting more control over testing. But it won’t be enough to keep northern leaders happy. Liverpool city region’s mayor Steve Rotheram said he was angry “no deal has been agreed” on financial support. Five Manchester MPs have written a joint letter complaining that hospitality settings make up only a “very small proportion” of infections. Labour’s shadow foreign secretary and Wigan MP Lisa Nandy told Andrew Marr she hadn’t seen “anger like this toward the government” since the days of Thatcher.

DOUBLE BUBBLE: Business secretary Alok Sharma is said to be the leading voice in government pushing for a new “rule of 12” over Christmas. Several of his cabinet colleagues support the idea of doubling the size of permitted gatherings over the period as a special treat, according to The Times. It looks like this week’s big showdown vote over the 10pm pub curfew will be overshadowed by the changing rules. Matt Hancock may be asked about the early closing, however, after he was accused of boozing beyond 10pm in the Commons bar. The Mail on Sunday cited witnesses saying the health secretary made a “crass joke about the government’s test and trace failing” as he ordered drinks after curfew. Hancock’s spokesman denied the claim, saying the minister was in the bar until a vote at 9.42pm, then “departed the parliamentary estate to go home”.

NETS DO IT GUYS! The Home Office has an ingenious idea to deal with migrants coming across the English Channel. Why not catch them in nets? Dan O’Mahoney – the department’s “clandestine channel threat commander” – said officials were considering using a sophisticated system of nets to snag up propellers and drag boats back to France. Dan, commander of the nets, said there’s only one drawback with the cunning plan: the French. “The problem with that currently is that the French won’t accept them back,” he said. Meanwhile, the Law Society has written to Priti Patel to share their concern over her anti-immigrant and anti-lawyer rhetoric, after a man with a knife injured and threatened to kill an immigration solicitor at a London law firm last month. People at the unnamed firm believe the attack was directly motivated by comments made by the home secretary about “do gooders” and “lefty lawyers”.

WHAT A LONG STRANGE BLIP IT’S BEEN: The SNP’s Margaret Ferrier has described her long train journey while infected with Covid as a “blip” – arguing the virus “makes you act out of character”. The MP, who is still refusing to resign despite her boss Nicola Sturgeon’s best efforts, told The Sun she began “panicking” and “wanting home” after receiving her positive test result in London. Ferrier said she was getting “a lot of criticism from people you thought were your colleagues or friends”. Sturgeon knows all too well what’s it’s like to fall out with old pals. The first minister revealed she hasn’t spoken to Alex Salmond for two years and said her old boss was “angry” with her because she refused to “collude” in making sexual misconduct allegations against him “go away”. Speaking to Sky News, Sturgeon took the strange step of reading out a series of WhatsApp messages with Salmond, live on air, following claims they had been withheld from an inquiry.

WOOING THE BLUES: No 10 officials are reportedly courting Joe Biden’s team after internal Downing Street polling showed they could start “writing off” Donald Trump’s chances of winning a second term. Can Biden’s team be courted? Top Democrats haven’t forgotten Johnson’s awful remarks about Obama’s “ancestral dislike” of the British Empire. Meanwhile, diplomats across Europe are gearing up for the week from hell – as the Brexit rhetoric gets ramped ahead of the EU Council summit on 15 October. Johnson told French president Emmanuel Macron over the weekend that the UK wants to “explore every avenue” to secure a trade deal. Which suggests the PM’s self-imposed, mid-October deadline will come and go without too much fuss. France is still playing hard ball over fishing rights. Annick Girardin, the country’s fishing minister, talked up a no-deal outcome – sounding every inch the Brexiteer: “Fishermen would rather have no agreement than a bad agreement.”

ON WITH THE GLOW! It sounds like Donald Trump has his own Halloween costume ready. A new report claims the president expressed a desire to stage a Superman-inspired stunt when he got out of hospital – ripping open his shirt to revealed the big ‘S’. Maybe Trump should dress up as the little guy from the Ready Brek adverts – the president claimed to have a “protective glow” now that he is “immune” from the coronavirus. “I have to tell you, I feel fantastically … Once you do recover, you’re immune,” he said, adding: “Having really a protective glow means something.” Meanwhile, the country’s top infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci has complained that an edited clip of him used in a Trump ad is misleading. It shows Dr Fauci saying he “can’t imagine that anybody could be doing more” to combat Covid-19. Dr Fauci pointed out was talking about doctors, rather than Trump.

On the record

“It’s really hard to explain how angry people are in the north of England … I haven’t felt anger like this toward the government since I was growing up here in the 1980s.”

Labour’s shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy on the sour mood.

From the Twitterati

“I’m old enough to remember when Boris Johnson said Obama opposed Brexit because he was Kenyan.”

Obama’s former adviser Ben Rhodes isn’t impressed by apparent No 10 efforts to woo the Democrat...

“Polls suggesting landslide win for Joe Biden must explain why Downing St reaching out to the Democrats – they’ll regret it if Donald Trump pulls off another surprise win.”

…but The Mail’s Andrew Pierce thinks No 10 may rue the day.

Essential reading

John Rentoul, The Independent: Don’t write off Boris Johnson – resilience is one of his strengths

Tom Peck, The Independent: Can Allegra Stratton make No 10’s farcical briefings fit for TV?

Nesrine Malik, The Guardian: Spitting Image shows how toothless British political satire has become

George Packer, The Atlantic: Republicans are suddenly afraid of democracy

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