19
You would certainly hope so.

CORONAVIRUS
How Johnson steeled himself to face Sir Keir Starmer
The empty benches weren’t the only reason this week’s PMQs were muted: the PM faced a rival that one cabinet minister compares to Tony Blair
Boris Johnson’s first PMQs with Sir Keir Starmer
Boris Johnson’s first PMQs with Sir Keir Starmer
JESSICA TAYLOR/UK PARLIAMENT
Francis Elliott
, Political Editor |
Oliver Wright
, Policy Editor |
Steven Swinford
, Deputy Political Editor
Saturday May 09 2020, 12.01am, The Times
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Boris Johnson awoke on Wednesday knowing that he had an appointment he could not delay again.

The previous week his office had left it late before telling Sir Keir Starmer that the prime minister would not be appearing in the Commons because Mr Johnson’s partner, Carrie Symonds, was about to give birth. The week before that, he had been recovering at Chequers from a life-threatening coronavirus infection.

With Ms Symonds and their new son, Wilfred, safely back in Downing Street the prime minister braced himself for initial contact with a new political enemy by going for a walk around St James’s Park just before 7am. In suit and tie, and followed by two close protection officers, he walked briskly up to Buckingham Palace and back as he took his state-sanctioned daily exercise.


Aides had a sense of foreboding: they had seen Sir Keir, the leader of the opposition, twice pick apart Dominic Raab, who deputised for Mr Johnson during his absence, at the dispatch box. It was clear that Mr Johnson should not try to bluster his way out of questions.

Sir Keir, meanwhile, was limbering up in the offices first used by David Cameron then adopted by Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn. Chris Ward, Sir Keir’s deputy chief of staff and the leader of his prime minister’s questions preparation team, put him through his paces.


As noon approached, Mr Johnson arrived in the Commons chamber early but found Sir Keir already waiting. In the strange “hybrid” parliament, where many MPs join proceedings remotely, the Labour leader sat alone on the opposition front bench while Mr Johnson stood behind the Speaker’s chair, waiting for a signal that PMQs was about to begin before taking his place. There was no roar of welcome from the small number of Tory MPs spaced widely behind and the exchanges between prime minister and leader of the opposition were stately.

Sir Keir extracted two key concessions from Mr Johnson: an admission that Britain had abandoned testing new cases because it did not have the capacity to keep pace with the epidemic, and that the spread of the infection in care homes was a matter of “bitter regret”.

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Johnson: data will inform next steps
The post-mortem back in No 10 that afternoon was sombre. It was clear to them that Wednesdays would no longer be a weekly semi-comic knockabout with a cartoon Marxist, as they had been with Mr Corbyn, but an altogether more testing affair.

The front page of The Daily Telegraph yesterday, on which the Labour leader urged Mr Johnson to honour the war-time generation on VE Day by getting to grips with the care home crisis, drove home the point. There was grudging admiration in Downing Street at the coup de théâtre. “It’s clear that this is a more professional operation,” one senior figure conceded yesterday.

Cabinet ministers looking beyond the crisis smell danger. “Starmer was impressive,” one said. “He has gone up a gear since he’s become leader. When he was doing the Europe job he was stunningly boring. His performances were dull and a little bit nervy.

“Now he seems much more comfortable. He’s got off to an undeniably good start and will make the other side of this argument in a way that doesn’t make people think he’s a Corbynite.

“He is in the Harold Wilson, Tony Blair mould of Labour leaders.”


Those on the Tory right worry that the government’s extraordinary economic intervention to help business to stay afloat will be politically far harder to unravel than it was to put in place. These rightwingers also make comparisons to the aftermath of the Second World War, where the public appetite for big state intervention led to politics being shifted decisively to the left of centre, and fear it could happen again.

“This is going to be the key political argument,” one right-wing cabinet minister said. “Do we open the economy up with trade like we planned before . . . or is there new pressure to protect jobs and become protectionist?

“Some people being furloughed will be working for businesses that have no chance of coming back. In the end the scheme was there to stop mass unemployment and the destruction of the economy. It was not there and cannot be there to stop the changes to the economy that will follow from the coronavirus. It is going to be a different economy with different demands.”




Another cabinet minister said the Tories had a “brutal summer” ahead, adding: “The aftermath could be hugely damaging. You’ll have people coming off the furloughing scheme who may not have jobs to go to. You’ll have the inevitable inquest into what went wrong.”

It’s with half an eye on that inquest that some members approached Thursday’s cabinet meeting with the sense that, in a reversal of the harlots’ prerogative, they have responsibility without power. “It’s a potemkin cabinet,” one said. “All the decisions have already been made.”

It was clear from the outset of the video conference that Mr Johnson had decided there were to be minimal changes to the lockdown, as he said he would proceed with “extreme caution”.

There was no disagreement over the need to go carefully, but there was a division over how specific to be on when easements should occur. Even this was expressed mostly in code. “The Irish model is the way to go,” one minister said, referring to Dublin’s five-phase plan with dates attached to each. “It’s sensible and detailed, it will give people confidence. My view is that if you give people dates and they’re far enough apart so that you can ensure the R is not turning against you, you can move to the next step. It will give people light at the end of the tunnel.”

There remains bafflement about why, if the level of R — or rate of reinfection — is to be made the guiding principle of policy, the scientific experts appear to be so vague when asked what it is.

“They don’t know what the R rate is,” one cabinet minister said. “Their best guess is between 0.5 and one. Oh great. It’s our key figure. It is all in the end a political decision rather than a scientific one. We will know in years to come whether Sweden got it right or whether Spain got it right.”


Initial results from an Office for National Statistics surveillance operation drawn from a panel of 10,000 households are due on Thursday. Initial results suggested that the operation showed the prevalence of the disease is between 0.2 and 0.6 per cent in the population. The ONS will consider expanding the sample size after an initial trial period that ends in about three weeks as it seeks to increase confidence. Some cabinet ministers believe that the operation is not being expanded quickly enough, however, given its importance to tracking the disease.

The Cabinet Office has told worried ministers that as testing increases so will data, allowing for a more sophisticated measure of R that will allow for accurate regional monitoring.

Downing Street is already pondering how and when to update the public, with some calling for a bi-weekly release of data shared at the Sage meetings.

This will be key to building public confidence, say Johnson’s allies, who claim cabinet ministers pressing for dates are missing the mood of a nervous public. Only by taking baby steps that are shown to be safe, they say, can the country be persuaded to take more decisive strides out of quarantine.

So this thing isn't going away any time soon then

They ain't letting you go back to the old normal stop deluding yourselves

I would say we are full stop

They want people to walk and cycle to work now... the end

plenty wanting to come this way

Spain announced any holidaymakers coming in must quarantine for 14 days..France will be popular!!!