Inside Politics: Tory MPs suspicious about lockdown laws lasting until 31 March

The prime minister says he wants to start lifting restrictions in mid-February – but backbenchers have spotted how long regulations last, writes Adam Forrest

Boris Johnson (PA)

Ever feel events are moving way too fast? It turns out time is literally speeding up. Scientists have discovered Earth is spinning more quickly than at any point in the last half century. 2021 is set to be even speedier than 2020, so the length of our days will be ever-so-slightly shorter. Boris Johnson looks and sounds like things are spinning out of his control. Struggling to keep up with the spread of the virus, the PM has offered a vague timetable for the lifting of lockdown which he doesn’t seem entirely convinced by. Mass vaccination cannot come soon enough for him.

 

Inside the bubble

 

Political commentator Andrew Grice on what to look out for on Monday:

MPs have been summoned back from their Christmas break to retrospectively approve the lockdown in England. Boris Johnson will not face PMQs as normal, but will open proceedings at 11.30am with a statement. Education secretary Gavin Williamson will also make a statement on what will replace this summer’s exams – and will no doubt face some tricky questions over the reopening of schools.

 

Daily briefing

 

LOCK AROUND THE CLOCK: Boris Johnson revealed 1.3 million people have been vaccinated for Covid over the last four weeks. With Labour leader Keir Starmer calling for “round the clock” vaccination, the government aims to get to two million doses a week later in January. But the PM sounded unsure whether all 13 million people in high-risk categories would be given the jab by mid-February, saying only “a very considerable portion of the most vulnerable groups” will get the jab by then. “Then there really is the prospect of beginning the relaxation of some of these [lockdown] measures,” he added. Some big Boots and Superdrug outlets will reportedly now help in the roll-out. But Simon Dukes, head of the Pharmaceutical Negotiating Services Committee, questioned why the government were now “scrabbling around” when thousands of smaller pharmacies could have been prepared months ago. Meanwhile, it emerged that one in 50 people in England had the virus over new year – and one in 30 people in London.

 

SHAMBLES UNSCRAMBLED: MPs will today vote through the lockdown already in place across England. There won’t be the kind of rebellion seen in December. “There’s no choice this time,” said one member the Covid Recovery Group (CRG) – but they have noticed that lockdown regulations don’t expire until 31 March (raising more doubts about Johnson’s mid-February aspiration for easing). The uneasy consensus over lockdown hasn’t stopped criticism over the messy U-turn on school closures. The government’s handling of schools was described as a “huge shambles” by influential Tory MP Robert Halfon – chair of the education committee. Halfon wants retired teachers and Ofsted inspectors to check GCSE and A-level work in the absence of exams this summer. Education secretary Gavin Williamson has asked Ofqual to come up with alternative arrangements again. “It’s unbelievably s*** … no idea how he’s still in the job,” one Tory MP told The Times.

 

SUPPLY DRAIN: Some of the fears about post-Brexit medicine supply appear to have come to pass. The mother of a nine-year-old boy with a severe form of epilepsy is worried her son could die after his supply of vital cannabis medicine from the Netherlands was stopped due to Brexit. The Department of Health and Social Care gave Hannah Deacon only two weeks’ notice that “prescriptions issued in the UK can no longer be lawfully dispensed in an EU member state”. Meanwhile, Brexit disruption has led Sainsbury’s to lose around 700 product lines in Northern Ireland – where the supermarket giant has been forced to stock stuff from Spar. Marks & Spencer said new trading rules were delaying food deliveries to its stores in France – where branches have run out of sandwiches. It come as Boris Johnson was forced to cancel his big trade-boosting trip to India set for later in January. Brexit supporters earmarked India as one of the big agreements they hoped to secure in 2021.

 

NO IFS, NO PUTTS: Looks like Donald Trump will have to think very carefully about where he wants to par-tee after the presidency. Nicola Sturgeon said she would not allow Trump into Scotland to play golf and escape Joe Biden’s inauguration later this month (there had been some speculation the outgoing president would head for his course in Turnberry). “We are not allowing people to come into Scotland … and that would apply to him as well as anybody,” the first minister said. “Coming to play golf is not what I would call an essential purpose.” The SNP leader joked that she hoped Trump’s “immediate travel plan is to exit the White House”. In a statement to The Independent, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said reports about a Turnberry trip were “not accurate” and that Trump “has no plans to travel to Scotland.”

 

PLASTER OVER DISASTER: Rishi Sunak announcement that retail, hospitality and leisure businesses forced to close during lockdown will be eligible for up to £9,000 in grants has been largely welcomed. But business groups have warned the £4.6bn set aside in support won’t be enough to save many firms from collapse – and called for the support to be expanded to other sectors. Kate Nicholls, chief executive of the UK Hospitality group, said: “Make no mistake that this is only a sticking plaster for immediate ills.” Speaking of money woes, one Conservative minister has been branded “out of touch” after suggesting people to drown their sorrows with a £170 bottle of champagne. Amidst the recession, minister for housing Christopher Pincher said described Krug Grand Cru Cuvée as an “alternative vaccine” against the “memory of last year”. Labour’s Mike Amesbury described Pincher as “breathtakingly arrogant.”

 

GEORGIA ON MY MIND: It’s still too close to call in Georgia, with 98 per cent of votes counted in the battle for two Senate seats in the state. But Associated Press have said Democrat and Baptist pastor Raphael Warnock has narrowly won one of the seats – which would make him the first black senator in his state’s history and put the Senate majority within the party’s reach. Republican state officials on the ground reported no significant problems with the vote. Donald Trump spewed out his usual nonsense, of course – claiming it looked like there had been a big “voter dump” against the Republican candidates. More interestingly, Trump put pressure on his VP Mike Pence to “decertify” Joe Biden’s win today when a joint session of Congress meets to receives the results of the state-by-state Electoral College. “If Mike Pence comes through for us, we will win the Presidency,” he tweeted.

 

On the record

 

“With every jab that goes into our arms, we are tilting the odds against Covid and in favour of the British people.”

Boris Johnson tries his best to sound optimistic.

 

From the Twitterati

 

“Boris Johnson has literally no answer for why he insisted many schools go back for one day. Because there is no justification in the world for it apart from shambolic incompetence.”

The Observer’s Sonia Sodha is bewildered by the one-day opening…

 

“You can desperately want schools to stay open if possible (as I did), and still see the insanity of opening them for one day, allowing 3m children to mix, preventing teachers from properly planning for remote learning, then announcing them closed again.”

…and the New Statesman’s Rachel Cunliffe is too.

 

Essential reading

 

John Rentoul, The Independent: Keir Starmer has stumbled and let Boris Johnson off the hook

 

Vince Cable, The Independent: Will we enjoy a second roaring twenties? Not likely

 

Rafael Behr, The Guardian: If Boris Johnson cared about schools, he’d have sacked Gavin Williamson

 

Quinta Jurecic, The Atlantic: Trump nihilism Is Destroying Our Democracy

 

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