The Government is drawing up plans to repeal emergency coronavirus laws including the legal requirement to self-isolate when testing positive for COVID-19. However, before you get too excited, this would be replaced by official guidance which encourages people to behave in certain ways. This means while the legal penalty may be gone, the tyranny of the risk-averse insurance companies, trade unions and public officials may well remain. Also, to further dampen the excitement, it won’t happen for weeks or even months, even though the virus is clearly no longer causing a public health crisis. And in the meantime the mask mandate is set to stay beyond January 26th. The Telegraph has the story.
The Telegraph understands Boris Johnson wants to permanently repeal emergency coronavirus laws which have governed how the public can live for almost two years.
Instead, official guidance would remain in place which encourages people to behave in certain ways, but would not result in fines or legal punishment if ignored.
The plans will be worked up over the coming weeks, with an announcement being penned in as early as the spring – although no final decisions have been taken.
It would also mean there would be no legal requirement to isolate after contact with someone who has Covid or to wear face masks in certain settings.
A senior Government source told the Telegraph: “Lots of legal requirements were put in place during the pandemic. As we come into a stage where things are more manageable and those legal restrictions may no longer be necessary, we will look to remove them promptly from the statute book. The Prime Minister is obviously determined to get back to normal as soon as we can.”
The move comes as hope grows that this winter’s Covid surge triggered by the emergence of the Omicron variant is easing, with daily case numbers continuing to fall. …
Downing Street is looking at three different drives to ease pandemic restrictions, some short-term and some long-term.
The so-called Plan B restrictions are expected to be largely lifted on January 26th, the review date that the Prime Minister set when he imposed them last month.
That means that the legal requirement for Covid passports – proof of full vaccination or a negative test – to be shown before entering large crowd venues is set to be dropped.
So too is guidance that urges people to work from home. However, a requirement to wear face masks on public transport, in shops and in other settings is likely to stay beyond January 26th.
A second drive is easing restrictions on travel. The need to take a lateral flow test on the second day after arriving into the U.K. is expected to drop.
A third drive is longer-term changes, with Government ministers believing the U.K. will move out of the pandemic and into a phase where Covid continues circulating but less frequently.
The Prime Minister and his Cabinet has made clear that an approach of “learning to live with Covid” must be adopted, given scientists say the virus will never disappear completely.
Supporters of the move compare it to the approach for other viruses – such as flu – in which people are encouraged to behave a certain way but not legally compelled to do so.
Depressingly, however glacial and disappointing the Government’s plans are, they will almost certainly be better than Labour’s.
Labour announced its alternative roadmap for Britain to “learn to live well with Covid” on Sunday, as the party accused the Government of having “an empty slogan with no plan”.
Launching a 10-point plan, Wes Streeting, the Shadow Health Secretary, said Labour would build up “sovereign capability” to manufacture test kits in Britain and publish economic, wellbeing and equality impact assessments for different policies to tackle the virus.
“We’re not out of the woods with COVID-19,” he said. “The virus will change and adapt and we need to learn to live well with it.
“For the Government, living with Covid is just an empty slogan with no plan. For some of the fanatics on the Conservative back benches, living with Covid means letting the virus rip. Both positions are highly irresponsible.”
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Douglas Ross, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, has called on Nicola Sturgeon to scrap most coronavirus restrictions, with the exception of face coverings, as data show that Scotland is “past the peak of Omicron”. The Telegraph has more.
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Sort of off topic, but I looked into FairJob (am trying to persuade my boss to sign up). It’s a fine initiative from what I can see. One thing that did make me think was this part of the Colleague Code of Conduct – Fair Job UK
On the face of it, it’s a statement one could agree with. My slight worry is that the “woke left” don’t see pushing their pet issues as “political debate” – they see it as the truth, the obvious truth, the science, the facts, what any right-thinking person would think. They think that their pet issues are beyond politics and that their opinions are uncontroversial. So they may well just plough on regardless with their views, and when you push back they will say “ah, you horrid far right person, you’re bringing politics into the workplace”.
Anyway, well done C J Strachan and it will be interesting to hear in the coming period how this initiative develops. I have a dream that one day they will be able to publish a long list of employers who have signed the pledge and those of us who suffer from “far right” opinions can use it as a resource when looking for employment.
Thanks for your feedback,
We’ve been working through what was called the ‘Pledge’ and the “Code’ and have made some changes – firstly we have replaced ‘pledge’ with ‘principle’ and also removed the idea of ‘committing’. Although the project is apolitical – merely being that results in ‘far right’ smears .. it’s the old ‘if you aren’t an ally you’re an enemy/silence is violence’ lie.
We understand that employers are naturally nervous about this so have set it up to be less formal, employers can either choose to openly state that they follow the principles or otherwise.
Point taken about the ‘political’ mention in that- we are changing it to ‘activism’ /
Brian Armstrong’s statement was pretty succinct.
If your boss wants any more info just get in touch we have a 15% off sale and have recently altered our membership levels to be simpler.
best
CJ
Thanks; much appreciated and all the best. I didn’t used to post anonymously here but I do now since our founder starting pushing BLM, though we did push back on that with some success.
We cover this in our latest FAT PIG NEWS! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNlpkuphHiY
Off-T
Well, have I just had a fabulous chat with a neighbour I have never met although she lives round the corner about 100 yards away.
I was just posting a sticker on a lamp post warning of potentially looming farming issues when a voice behind me declared “I agree with you.”
I was a bit startled and turned round to face a lovely young woman and the conversation started. We must have spent 40 minutes discussing the current state of play. It was bloody marvellous. Every single topic we were on the same page. Bloody wonderful. She assured me that there are quite a lot of people locally who have awoken and she said even the die-hard jabbers have said “no more.”
Honestly it was like finding a long lost friend. We could have chatted for hours.
I feel properly perked up.
It is wonderful when that happens. A little bit like taking a girl home for the first time and finding that glow when you do nothing but talk and laugh.
In a similar vein, I know someone – a director of a SME – who refuses to interview any candidate whose CV has a “preferred pronoun”. Too much hassle.
Common sense. It is a very underrated quality these days. Sadly.
Splendid. But if anyone found out who he was he would be up before a tribunal for discrimination before you could say pronoun. When I shortlisted people for junior doctor posts I had a whole series of exclusions. After all, when you have over 200 applicants you can’t interview them all or you would never get any work done. Was I discriminating? Yes. Did it really matter? No.
In the case of listed companies shareholder activism should have restrained the management and Board. There could even now be action against those who performed less well on account of misallocation of resources towards political objectives.
a true conservative or reformist government would call to account all Quangos and permanent secretaries. They should also demand accounting from NGOs international enter ties and charities which have received tax payer funds.
In the UK the Electoral Commission Commissioners should be required to explain Commissioners they did not apply the law against campaigners who were not registered campaign organisations. Most were not registered
Another terrific article. Many thanks C J.
Powerful stuff! And encouraging that the author is seeing signs that the tide is turning, slowly but surely. I hope so.
Politics also needs removing from sport. Taking the knee in homage to a lifelong druggie thief was disgraceful. All it did was make some people very, very rich as they embezzled the donations.
I see a couple of comments saying “the tide is turning”, well, didn’t go fully back to the horizon when nobody bought Budweiser? The advent of “Go Woke Go Broke” ensured it won’t come back in. The answer to all of this is simple: do not buy the products and refuse to take a job with companies that implement these policies.