Inside Politics – Coronavirus special: Boris Johnson to reveal next week’s lockdown changes

Sign up here to receive this daily briefing in your email inbox every morning

Lockdown has seen deer, sheep and mountain goats roaming free in our towns and cities. Some kind of normality will resume from Monday, when human beings cooped up in captivity for more than 10 weeks can go and stare at animals behind bars. The reopening of zoos is one of the changes Boris Johnson is expected to confirm when he announces lockdown changes later today. With his plan for schools in disarray, fresh concerns over contact tracing and pressure building on the NHS, it may be tempting for one of the reporters to ask if the crisis has been a classic case of lions led by donkeys. I’m Adam Forrest, and welcome to The Independent’s daily Inside Politics briefing during the coronavirus pandemic.

Inside the bubble

Our political commentator Andrew Grice on what to look out for today:

PMQs has become fascinating again. It will be interesting to see whether Keir Starmer opts for questions on race, coronavirus or both. Will Boris Johnson adopt a traditionally tough Tory law and order stance, or acknowledge that Black Lives Matter protestors have legitimate grievances? Labour will force a vote on plans to scrap regulations it says will weaken legal safeguards for children in care, while Labour’s Chi Onwurah will urge the government to help sub-postmasters wrongly convicted in the Post Office Horizon IT scandal.

Daily briefing

FIERCE CREATURES: Boris Johnson will use today’s Downing Street briefing to outline lockdown changes coming next week. We know non-essential shops in England can re-open on 15 June after business secretary Alok Sharma confirmed the move to bring the high street “back to life”. England’s outdoor attractions such as zoos, safari parks and drive-in cinemas will also get the green light from Monday. Despite speculation about the date being brought forward, Sharma revealed pubs and restaurants won’t open until 4 July “at the earliest”. Johnson is sure to be questioned about a new NHS Confederation projection showing the waiting list is expected to rise from 4.2 million to around 10 million by Christmas. He may also be grilled about the test and trace programme after contact tracers told an independent experts’ group they have been given little or no work to do.

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST: A statue of the slaveholder Robert Milligan was removed from outside the Museum of London Docklands to cheers and applause late on Tuesday. It followed mayor Sadiq Khan launching a review into the city’s landmarks and sharing his “hope” some monuments could come down. In Oxford, hundreds of protestors crowded outside Oriel College to demand the removal of the statue of imperialist Cecil Rhodes, chanting “take it down”. Keir Starmer may wish to ask Johnson about Tuesday’s minute silence in memory of George Floyd. While the Labour leader and many Labour MPs were seen kneeling solidarity at 11am, the PM and his cabinet did not observe the tribute. The PM’s spokesman said it happened just when they were busy discussing the “anger and the grief that is not just felt in the US but around the world”.

MAN WITHOUT A PLAN: The government has been heavily criticised for having “no plan” to reopen schools in September, after education secretary Gavin Williamson announced he was dropping the requirement for England’s primary schools to bring back children before the summer holiday. Teachers will now be asked to take in whatever children they can while trying to follow social distancing and maximum class sizes of 15. Steve Chalke, founder of the Oasis Academy Trust, raised the prospect of schools having to turn hotel suites and church halls into classrooms. He told The Independent: “It’s basically a way of saying we’ve run out of ideas – we don’t know what do, over to you.” The children’s commissioner for England, Anne Longfield, said the prospect of many pupils going without structured learning for six months was “deeply worrying” – one of many figures calling on the government to offer a plan to support parents over the summer.

NOT GREAT: Joe Biden addressed George Floyd’s funeral service in Houston with a powerful video message, stating: “When there is justice for George Floyd, we will truly be on our way to racial justice in America.” One of Floyd’s nieces, Brooke Williams, said: “Someone said “Make America Great Again”, but when has America ever been great?” The man who came up with that phrase was busy examining protest videos. Donald Trump suggested 75-year-old Martin Gugino – the man badly hurt when pushed over by police in Buffalo – “could be an ANTIFA provocateur”. The US president said it appeared the old man was trying “scan police communications in order to black out the equipment”. Gugino’s family said it was a “dark, dangerous and untrue accusation”.

IN A JAM OVER TRAFFIC: China has dismissed a report by Harvard Medical School report using satellite images showing traffic flows outside hospitals in Wuhan to suggest some people may have had the coronavirus in the Chinese city as early as the autumn of 2019. China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said: “I think it is ridiculous, incredibly ridiculous, to come up with this conclusion based on superficial observations such as traffic volume.” The report has not been peer reviewed, and one top US scientist accused the Harvard researchers of “cherry-picking data”.

DOUBLING IN DELHI: Worrying news from India, where Delhi’s deputy chief minister has warned that the number of coronavirus cases in the capital could top 500,000 by the end of next month. Manish Sisodia said the city would need 80,000 hospital beds – but has just under 9,000 at the moment. The authorities are attempting to double capacity in 22 city hospitals. Meanwhile, in Brazil, the government has agreed to start publishing daily coronavirus data again following an order from the country’s Supreme Court. The latest figures show almost 40,000 deaths from Covid-19.

On the record

“It’s a sad truth that much of our wealth was derived from the slave trade – but this does not have to be celebrated in our public spaces.”

Sadiq Khan on the removal of the Robert Milligan statue.

From the Twitterati

“We kneel with all those opposing anti-Black racism. #BlackLivesMatter.”

Keir Starmer shares a photo showing he and Angela Rayner taking a knee…

“Only just seen this. This now a cult.”

…causing right-wing radio host Julia Hartley-Brewer to mistake a symbolic gesture for a ‘cult’.

Essential reading

Vince Cable, The Independent: I’m sorry to tell you this, but Donald Trump will win a second term as president

Nicola Appleton, The Independent: With schools closed until September, mothers like me are risking our careers

Lynsey Hanley, The Guardian: Government ineptitude has trapped people in a coronavirus twilight zone

Emma Webb, The Spectator: Sadiq Khan’s statue review is a mistake

Sign up here to receive this daily briefing in your email inbox every morning