BORIS BLAST
EMBATTLED Boris Johnson said a "circuit breaker" lockdown would be a "disaster" as he again slapped down Labour's demands for a UK-wide shutdown in a fiery PMQs.
The PM lashed out at Sir Keir Starmer for seeing the pandemic as a "good crisis to exploit" as he rejected his calls for a "circuit breaker" shutdown.
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It comes after a stormy morning at Westminster with Tory 'hawks' lashing out at the idea of a national lockdown as a "business breaker."
Mr Johnson stormed this lunch time that he would not U-turn on his regional approach which will keep kids in school and keep businesses going.
He said: "(The three tiered local lockdowns) would deliver the reduction in the R, locally, regionally, to avert what none of us want to see.
"And that is the disaster of a national lockdown. We don't want to go there, we want a regional approach. He should cooperate with it."
"(Sir Keir) wants to close pubs he wants to close bars he wants to close businesses in areas where the incidence is low.
"Let's try to avoid the misery of another national lockdown in which he would want to impose as I say in a headlong way.
"Let's work together to keep kids in school, who he will now yank out school in a peremptory way, keep our economy going, keep jobs and livelihoods supported in this country."
In an intense exchange, Sir Keir accused the PM of being an "opportunist all his life".
He lashed out at the PM, saying: "This is difficult for him to understand. But having read and considered the Sage advice I have genuinely concluded that a circuit breaker is in the national interest."
It comes as:
- Manchester and Lancashire could be given order to go into a Tier 3 lockdown as soon as today
- Northern Ireland will go into a "circuit breaker" lockdown from Friday, with all pubs and restaurants to close for FOUR weeks
- Wales has threatened to close their borders to England if Mr Johnson doesn't ban travel out of virus hotspots
- A new study has said England and Wales suffered one of the highest excess death tolls in the world in the first wave
Chancellor Rishi Sunak also piled onto the criticism of Sir Keir for calling for a circuit breaker lockdown.
He said this afternoon: "It is a blunt instrument, it would cause needless damage to parts of our country where virus rates are low.
"And having spent weeks indulging themselves with political attacks on this Government's efforts to protect jobs, they have now flipped and supported a blunt national lockdown.
"They won't say how much damage this will do to jobs or livelihoods, they won't say how they would support businesses through it, and they don't seem to care about the long term stability of the public finances."
Scientists claim a short lockdown could save thousands of lives and Health Secretary Matt Hancock had to grapple with angry Tory rebels who demanded the measures not be considered and called for further relaxations.
As many as 42 Conservative MPs voted against the 10pm curfew rules in the Commons last night.
The onslaught from Tory "hawks" continued this morning with senior MPs saying national measures would crush the country.
The Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey issued a strong message a national lockdown was not being considered, saying she didn't think it was the "right approach".
She told LBC this morning: "Parliament has only just voted last night for this national approach of the three tiers with much stronger local measures where they are needed.
"And we need to take communities with us right across the country in having some of the national measures, but frankly the Labour Party was saying 19 out of 20 areas in these lockdowns haven't made any difference, now they want to see a national lockdown.
"I don't think it is the right approach. Right now we need to allow this chance for the localised interventions to really have an effect so that together we can be focused on saving lives and livelihoods."
Chair of the Commons' Liaison Committee Sir Bernard Jenkin told BBC Radio 4: "In the areas where there are very sharply rising cases there is a strong case for going straight to Tier 3 measures, but these should be selective, they should not be national.
"Whereas Essex has got an 82 per cent increase over the last seven days, Cornwall has only got 16.2 per cent, Somerset has only got 39 per cent."
And former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith said a "circuit breaker" is really just a "business breaker".
He told TalkRadio this morning: "The problem with these ridiculous phrases which are used, and I think Sage is being quite ridiculous on this particular one, to try and call this a circuit breaker is a terrible bad joke.
"This is not a circuit breaker, this is a business breaker.
"Let's be very clear on what this means. When people talk about a two week lockdown they should go back to March and remember what was promised then - not much more than a month.
"We ended up with a month of absolutely no business being able to operate, the Exchequer having to pile money out the door at a rate which has never been seen since we were at war.
"All of these things cause huge consequences, so the idea of a casual 'let's have a circuit breaker' over the half term as though this is going to make a short, sharp difference, it's not going to."
Sir Iain called the demands from Sir Keir for a two to three week shut down "naked political posturing".
The PM has so far rejected warnings from his medical advisers that a major reset is required.
But there is a growing belief in his inner circle that the move is inevitable.
One close Cabinet colleague said last night there is a 60 per cent chance he will bring in the measure over half-term, which begins for many a week on Friday.
Schools will close for half of the four-week period while restaurants and bars will only be able to offer takeaways.
Yesterday, it emerged the Sage advisory committee of government scientists told ministers the “circuit breaker” would put the march of the virus back by 28 days.
But the PM refused to implement the draconian measures and unveiled his three-tier local lockdowns instead — with Liverpool immediately hit with the highest restrictions.
It has sparked rebellion from members of Sage, with the director of the Wellcome Trust and member of the group Jeremy Farrar who urged the Government to bring in short, tough measures now, to prevent a long hard winter.
Mr Farrar said on Twitter: "The best time get ahead inevitable winter increase would have been >3wks ago, but 2nd-best time is now.
"Pandemic can still be controlled, transmission can be reduced, hospitalisations, pressure on NHS & tragically people dying can be prevented.
"But if we wait, the government will inevitably have to change course again in 4-6 weeks, but the longer they leave it the harsher restrictions will have to get and the longer they will need to be imposed."
Adding pressure to the PM, Labour’s Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham is also demanding a circuit breaker.
He said this morning he would "not accept" Tier 3 restrictions and would prefer a short shutdown.
He warned putting the North into Tier Three restrictions would “be a path to hardship for people, redundancies and business failure”.
But No 10 last night said a “gold command” meeting will today be held to discuss if Greater Manchester and Lancashire should join Liverpool and be put on very high alert.
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The change would put the two areas into Tier Three, which would see 3,100 pubs and 475 gyms shut their doors.
Mr Johnson’s new hardline stance to use tiers to protect the economy over advice for a lockdown from the scientists had seen him showered with praise from senior Tories.
But Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer called for pubs and restaurants to be closed across the nation and workers to stay at home for at least two weeks.
Yet he was unable to say how he could guarantee the lockdown would not drag on longer if rates remained stubbornly high.
And he could not say how much the draconian move would cost England’s already shattered businesses.
Boris accused Sir Keir of “playing politics with the virus”.
TRUCE IS DEAD
He told a private meeting of Tory MPs the Labour leader was “careering around like a shopping trolly with a broken wheel”.
Until yesterday, Labour had vowed “constructive opposition” in regard to the virus, promising to work with and support the Government’s strategy.
But last night that truce was dead. The Sun can reveal that some in Mr Johnson’s Cabinet believe the PM will have to relent, but is concerned about the “toxicity” of another lockdown and was even looking for another name to call the temporary measure.
It came as the daily death toll rose above 100 for first time in four months yesterday — taking the total to 43,018.
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Meanwhile, Health Secretary Matt Hancock — who wants more restrictions — made a tetchy defence of the Government’s latest curbs.
He told MPs: “We’re trying to protect, as much as is possible, education and protect, as much as is possible, work.
"Essentially that leaves socialising as the other part of life, of activity where people transmit the virus.
“And so it is therefore understandable that governments around the world and around this United Kingdom, governments of all different political persuasions, have all come to broadly the same conclusion that it is necessary to restrict socialising because that way we reduce the transmission with the least damage to education and the economy.”
'BREAK THE CYCLE'
The PM was told by Sage last month that shutting universities would have more of an impact on reducing the spread of Covid than the combined effect of closing bars, pubs, restaurants and gyms.
But Mr Johnson ignored their call and ploughed on with his three tiered virus response.
Tory grandee and leading lockdown rebel Sir Graham Brady told The Sun: “Boris should be congratulated on resisting moves to ever tighter restrictions.
"The lockdown earlier in the year was justified on the grounds that it ensured that NHS critical care capacity would not be overwhelmed.
“But since then we have seen that these kinds of restrictions carry a huge cost in terms of illness and lives lost to other things such as cancer going undiagnosed or untreated and a huge economic cost as well, with millions of jobs and many thousands of businesses threatened.”
But addressing the PM directly yesterday, Sir Keir warned: “You can’t keep delaying this and come back to the House of Commons every few weeks with another plan that won’t work. So act now. Break the cycle.
The Sun says
BORIS Johnson has rightly refused to surrender control to the erratic scientists of Sage. Nor must he buckle to the immense pressure Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer cynically piled on him yesterday.
Sage and Starmer both now clamour for the new national lockdown every sane person previously considered catastrophic, unthinkable and unfair.
For Sage it is the culmination of a long journey from complacency to panic.
Starmer, meanwhile, knows the public backs sweeping restrictions — and that if Boris resists he can blame the PM for every new death, claiming they would have lived under Labour.
And yet Labour, as ever, will accept no responsibility for the mass unemployment and deprivation their plan would cement in place.
They are already blaming Chancellor Rishi Sunak for a “1980s jobs crisis” despite the unprecedented sums he has spent to minimise hardship.
Their games are revolting and shameful. Yet it will take a PM of immense courage to resist the lockdown calls.
Unlike Sage or Starmer, though, Boris has responsibilities to us all. Yes, to the old and sick, the most vulnerable to dying from Covid.
But also to the overwhelming majority who aren’t, and whose job may be lost, business bankrupted, family home repossessed.
The first lockdown cost hundreds of thousands of jobs. A second will send unemployment rocketing towards four million: More firms destroyed, more families destitute, more ordinary people suffering physically and mentally.
And there is no plan beyond the panic button Starmer and Sage long to press.
Starmer wants a “two to three-week” lockdown. He doesn’t even know exactly how long. Not long enough, in fact, to register significant falls in the daily tolls.
But even if they did visibly decline, what then? Reopen the economy, watch them climb again, then lock down a THIRD time in the dead of winter?
How would this cycle of doom ever end? With a vaccine not yet invented? With a mass-testing programme which exists only in Matt Hancock’s dreams?
Sage admits its lockdown would delay the virus’s march just 28 days. What, then, is its point, given the cost?
Boris has a monumental decision no one would envy. He is surrounded by a divided Cabinet, scientists covering their backsides and a devious, tribal Opposition hell-bent on deploying a grave national crisis for political advantage.
He must try to take his time and somehow make the right call.
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“If you do you will have the votes in the House of Commons. I can assure you of that. You don’t need to balance the needs of your party against the national interest.”
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Meanwhile, Labour London Mayor Sadiq Khan was begging ministers to put the capital under stricter measures.
But junior ministerial aide Chris Green quit the Government over local lockdown restrictions, saying Mr Johnson had gone too far.
Sir Keir Starmer demands Boris bring in a national 'circuit breaker' lockdown
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