Inside Politics: Grant Shapps flies home to get started on his quarantine

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Tuesday 28 July 2020 07:58 BST

What are the new rules on Brits returning from Spain?

BBC medical drama Holby City has resumed filming with a special episode which sees the hospital gripped by the pandemic. It would be hard for any dramatist to capture the stranger-than-fiction stuff going on in the aftermath of the outbreak. An English cat has become the first pet in the country to catch the coronavirus. Investors are stockpiling gold, as forecasters predict the economy will be in the doldrums for years. And transport secretary Grant Shapps is flying home early from Spain to get started on the quarantine he was supposed to be in charge of organising for the rest of the country.

Inside the bubble

Chief political commentator John Rentoul on what to look out for today:

The Commons has shut down for six weeks, but there is one select committee, defence, still sitting today, hearing from BT and Vodafone about the effect of taking Huawei out of the 5G network. The Lords is sitting until tomorrow; still passing legislation (the committee stage of the agriculture bill, which replaces EU farm subsidies, since you ask). Robin Walker, the Northern Ireland minister, will be giving evidence about the latest deal-or-no-deal arrangements for Northern Irish trade.

Daily briefing

OH MY DARLING QUARANTINE: With several days of stories about British holidaymaker misery ahead, it looks like Downing Street has a plan to reduce the damage. Quarantine for people returning from Spain could be cut from 14 days to 10 this week, according to The Telegraph. The newspaper reports that returnees will be tested eight days after they land. A negative result will allow them to come out of self-isolation two days later. Could Grant Shapps benefit? The transport secretary is flying home today so he can “get through quarantine” asap. The Foreign Office has now advised against non-essential travel to all of Spain, including the Balearic and Canary Islands. What happens to holidaymakers losing out on work? They can always apply for Universal Credit, said No 10 – but not statutory sick pay (something the unions want to see change).

ON YER BIKE: Boris Johnson will follow his crackdown on junk food by announcing a £2bn strategy to boost cycling today – with grants for electric bikes and thousands of miles of new cycleways promised. New £50 bike repair vouchers will be made available to the first 50,000 applying online today. In a No 10 video clip the PM said he was frankly “too fat” before his illness with coronavirus, as he moved to ban junk food ads before 9pm and end bogof deals. Some health experts suggested including Nando’s and McDonalds in the “eat out to help out” initiative might be considered mixed messaging. Meanwhile, No 10 said Johnson regards rapper Wiley’s antisemitic tweets as “abhorrent” and believes Twitter’s response was “not good enough”.

GOING FOR GOLD: The price of gold is at a record high – a sure sign that the global economy is in a bad way. It could take until 2024 for the UK economy to get back to the size it was before the lockdown began, according to the EY Item Club. The forecasters – using a model similar to the Treasury – predict the economy will shrink by 11.5 per cent this year. How much with Johnson and the Tories take the blame for the coming recession? A new poll has found that 42 per cent of us think the crisis has been handled badly, while only 36 per cent think it’s been handled well. Among those who opt for “badly”, 70 per cent blame the government and 65 per cent think the PM is personally responsible, according to the King’s College London and Ipsos MORI survey.

HIGH AND DRY: An influential group of MPs has accused the Foreign Office of failing to provide sufficient support for 1.3 million Brits stranded abroad when the pandemic hit. Tory MP Tom Tugendhat, chair of the Commons’ foreign affairs committee, criticised the department for giving “misleading” guidance – and said advice was “entirely absent” at times. His committee’s stinging report also criticised the government repatriation operation as “too slow”. Sir Mark Sedwill, the soon-to-depart cabinet secretary, has also offered some constructive criticism. Speaking at Oxford University, Sir Mark suggested cabinet be cut down – saying the current number of ministers made it a “cumbersome forum” for debate. Dominic Cummings will be pleased with that.

VERY STABLE SCIENTIFIC GENUIS: It looks like Donald Trump is throwing his re-election hopes in with the discovery of a working coronavirus vaccine. He predicted the White House’s “operation warp speed” would deliver one in “record time”, adding: “We will achieve a victory over the virus by unleashing America’s scientific genius.” His national security adviser Robert O’Brien has tested positive for Covid-19 – the highest-ranking US official to do so yet. Elsewhere, Senate Republicans have proposed a $1 trillion Covid aid package. Democrats are unhappy it cuts $600-a-week unemployment benefits by two-thirds.

TREATY WITH KID GLOVES: New Zealand has followed the UK by suspending its extradition treaty with Hong Kong in response to the security law imposed on the territory by China. “New Zealand can no longer trust that Hong Kong’s criminal justice system is sufficiently independent from China,” foreign affairs minister Winston Peters. New Zealand will also treat military and technology exports to Hong Kong in the same way as it treats such exports to China, as part of a review of its overall relationship with Hong Kong. China isn’t happy about it, of course. “The Chinese side has lodged its grave concern and strong opposition,” an embassy representative said in the statement.

On the record

“When I went into ICU when I was really ill, I was way overweight … I was too fat.”

Boris Johnson on his weight problem.

From the Twitterati

“I don’t think many people in either the Conservative Party … voted for Boris Johnson expecting him to ban Buy One Get One Free deals on pizza.”

Tim Dawson, editor of Free Market Conservatives, clings to ideology...

“Props to Boris Johnson for doing this. Damascene conversion and all. But there are lots of precedents – seat belts, crash helmets, smoking in pubs etc … all absorbed by society happily and for the better. Big Sugar must go way of Big Baccy.”

…but the FT’s Peter Foster hails the ‘damascene conversion’.