The Prime Minister has taken a political beating from Sir Graham Brady, the Chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs, who says that lockdown rules will look “silly” if Covid cases continue to fall. The Evening Standard has the story.
Boris Johnson was warned today by the leader of Tory backbench MPs that lockdown rules will look “silly” if Covid cases continue to tumble.
Sir Graham Brady… also criticised the five-week gaps between each stage of the Prime Minister’s roadmap out of lockdown.
He spoke out just days after England’s Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty warned that speeding up the easing of the restrictions would significantly increase the risk of a large surge in coronavirus and more deaths.
Ministers are insisting that the Government is sticking to its timetable for lifting lockdown, with the restrictions due to be largely gone by June 21st.
But a growing number of Tory MPs are publicly challenging it as Covid cases fall, as do hospitalisations and coronavirus deaths.
Sir Graham told talkRadio: “The danger is that the rules start to look silly.
“People can see what is happening with the figures… [for] most people it’s a very long time since they knew anybody in their own circle who had been ill with Covid.
“These things start to become more and more apparent.”
Will the pressure to lift lockdown early become too much for the Prime Minister to resist?
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: It turns out that the Government is not even intending to end social distancing rules on June 21st, and that there is currently no end date envisaged for social distancing. John Stevens, the leader of the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches, has met with Government officials to discuss lockdown rules for churches. He has written the following:
At present, the 2m social distancing guidance and requirement to wear masks in church will remain in place after June 21st. Whether these restrictions can be removed will depend upon the progress of infection rates and whether new variants of the virus emerge that require the measures to remain in place.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.