Inside Politics: Covid jabs for kids and Johnson to ‘approve booster programme’

Chief medical officer says benefits of jabs for kids outweigh risks and a single dose of Pfizer to be offered to over 50s after six months, writes Matt Mathers

Tuesday 14 September 2021 08:19 BST

(PA)

Large parts of the country are set for torrential downpours today as the British summer goes out with a whimper. Michael Gove wakes up this morning with a dark cloud hanging over his head, after leaked recordings revealed he made crude sexual comments, joked about paedophilia within top levels of government, and used a racist slur in a series of remarks in his twenties. Elsewhere, Covid jabs have been approved for 12 to 15-year-olds and Boris Johnson later sets out his plan for how to deal with the virus in winter.

Inside the bubble

Cabinet meets this morning, and will no doubt agree with the latest zig of the government’s zig-zagging policy on vaccine passports, before Sajid Javid, the health secretary, sets it out in the House of Commons. Boris Johnson will host a Downing Street press conference on the government’s winter plan for coronavirus in the afternoon. Liz Truss, international trade secretary, darling of the Conservative grassroots and reported sceptic about raising taxes, will be giving a speech at lunchtime. MPs will vote on the tax rise, in the form of the Health and Social Care Levy Bill, this evening.

Coming up:

-Vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi on BBC Radio 4 Today at 8.10am

-JCVI deputy chair Anthony Harnden on Times Radio Breakfast at 9.05am

Daily Briefing

Afghanistan: The Independent’s petition calling on the government to take in more refugees from Afghanistan has received more than 12,000 signatures. You can sign too and have your voice heard by following this link.

SCHOOL JABS: Covid dominates the front pages this morning following the government announcement that children aged 12 to 15 will be offered one dose of Pfizer’s vaccine from next week. The decision came despite the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation previously refusing to recommend the rollout of the vaccination for children aged 12 to 15. It drew anger from backbench Tory MPs, with one even calling for the resignation of England’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty. “The consent process will be handled by each school in their usual way and will provide sufficient time for parents to provide their consent,” vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi told the Commons. “Children aged 12 to 15 will also be provided with information usually in the form of a leaflet for their own use and to share and discuss with their parents prior to the date of the immunisation and that scheduled time for it.”

WINTER IS COMING: Johnson holds a press conference later today where he will set out his winter plan for dealing with Covid. The PM is expected to announce booster jabs for the over-50s as part of the blueprint, after advice from the JCVI. He is expected to declare that Britain can “live with the virus” and set out plans for future lockdowns, although these will only be used as a last resort. Speaking ahead of the formal announcement of the plan, which will be made in a statement by health secretary Sajid Javid to the House of Commons, Johnson said that the UK’s successful vaccination programme was the key to the UK being able to return to a more normal life. “The pandemic is far from over, but thanks to our phenomenal vaccine programme, new treatments and testing, we are able to live with the virus without significant restrictions on our freedoms,” said the prime minister.

GOVIDIOT: Michael Gove made crude sexual comments, joked about paedophilia within top levels of government, and used a racist slur in a series of remarks in his twenties, The Independent can reveal. The Cabinet Office minister, who on Monday publicly declared he was no longer friends with ex-No 10 aide Dominic Cummings, also described Prince Charles as a “dull, wet, drippy adulterer” in speeches at the Cambridge Union while he was a student at Oxford, and after his graduation while working as a journalist, recordings of which came to light this week. Gove declined a request for comment.

HOUSING DIVIDE: Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities are more likely to face unaffordable housing costs because of poverty, the benefit cap, immigration policies such as ‘No Recourse To Public Funds’ (NRPF) and racism in the labour market, new research has revealed. One quarter of these groups, excluding Indian employees who are overrepresented as homeowners, are paying housing costs that are unaffordable (25 per cent), compared with 10 per cent of white workers, the study by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has shown.

‘DISGRACEFUL’: The minister for Afghan resettlement has told MPs to stop asking for help on behalf of people stranded in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan – as the government will not be able to respond to their requests. In a letter to MPs, seen by The Independent, Victoria Atkins told her parliamentary colleagues instead to tell desperate people seeking their help to visit the government website. Describing the move as “utterly disgraceful”, the Liberal Democrats warned that Afghans trapped in their homes in fear of the Taliban had “lost one of their last lifelines”.

‘BASIC HUMANITY’: The PM will display an “absence of basic humanity” if he allows the planned cut to Universal Credit to go ahead, Nicola Sturgeon has claimed. Scotland’s first minister used her closing speech at the SNP conference to question how Johnson’s conscience could allow him to end the £20-a-week uplift brought in at the start of the pandemic – which she described as the “biggest overnight reduction” to a social security payment since the 1930s.

On the record

“The difference between giving a third dose to a healthy young adult or a first dose to an ICU worker or elderly or immunocompromised person in a developing country – clearly one has a higher benefit to it. I understand the drive to offer absolute maximum protection but actually it’s counter productive [to administer third doses], in the sense that while the virus is still circulating and mutating across the world, then ultimately that’s going to affect the UK as well.”

Managing director of the Covax Facility Aurélia Nguyen on booster jabs.

From the Twitterati

“For me, the big takeaway from the Whitty press conference: the real reason kids jabs are being approved is this winter we’re going to see serious strain on the NHS and schools from Covid. And vaccination is key weapon in reducing spread in schools.”

HuffPost executive politics editor Paul Waugh on decision to approve jabs for 12 to 15-year-olds.