BORIS Johnson being forced to self-isolate on England’s Covid freedom day is “not a great look”, one of his cabinet colleagues has admitted.
Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng acknowledged the Prime Minister’s reluctant quarantine at his country residence at Chequers jarred with the widespread easing of restrictions.
However he told LBC radio Mr Johnson “has to do what everyone else is doing”.
As social distancing rules end south of the border, the PM will hole up until July 26.
His 10-day stint includes the last Prime Minister’s Questions before the Commons summer recess, and the second anniversary of him entering No 10, which is on Saturday.
Mr Kwarteng also insisted the Prime Minister had “done the right thing” by self-isolating and denied it had been “damaging” for him to have initially considered skipping quarantine.
READ MORE: Boris Johnson insists he only 'briefly' considered ducking Covid quarantine
The PM and Chancellor Rishi Sunak were both pinged by NHS Test and Trace at the weekend after meeting Health Secretary Sajid Javid, who tested postive on Saturday.
On Sunday morning, Downing Street said both the PM and the Chancellor would avoid self-isolation by taking part in a Governent pilot scheme using daily tests Covid instead.
However after a vociferous backlash from across the political spectrum, both men performed a U-turn within three hours.
Vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi said this morning the Government “don’t get every decision right” and admitted the Prime Minister had to rethink his initial decision.
Asked on ITV’s Good Morning Britain if an error was made announcing the Cabinet ministers would take part in the pilot, Mr Zahawi said: “Of course, and as soon as the Prime Minister realised that this would be wrong, he came out very clearly and said ‘We will self-isolate, that’s the right thing to do’.”
As Scotland moves to Level 0, with some social distancing restrictions and face masks still in force, England is today unlocking to a far greater degree, which critics have called reckless.
Face masks are no longer mandatory in shops and on public transport in England, limits on gathering have gone and the work-from-home guidance has ended.
Nightclubs are also open, with people queuing to get in at a minute past midnight last night.
Theatres and restaurants can fully reopen, and pubs are no longer restricted to table service only.
The UK Government’s decision to ease rules and replace them with loose guidance, comes as the country has already hit 50,000 Covid-19 cases a day, with warnings it coudl not top 100,000 a day.
READ MORE: SNP attempt to scupper ‘hateful anti-refugee Bill’ as it returns to Commons
Mr Zahawi said he was “confident” the Government was “doing the right thing” but urged people to “respect” businesses and public transport providers who insisted on mask wearing.
Professor Andrew Hayward, a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), which advises ministers, said that if the public did not take a cautious approach to unlocking then “tens of thousands” of more people could die.
The University College London academic told Sky News: “We are heading into the biggest wave of Covid infection that we have ever seen and, even though the vaccine will substantially reduce the number of deaths and hospitalisations, it’s still likely that we will see somewhere in the low tens of thousands of deaths even if we are cautious.
“And that could move into the mid and high tens of thousands of deaths if we just went back to normal activity.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel