Keir Starmer sets challenge as Boris Johnson makes mass vaccination promises

We were presented with a familiar scene at the coronavirus press conference yesterday. Boris Johnson made reassuring noises and even appeared to hint at necessary extra financial support (he said the government would “look at” the unfair accommodation costs of students, in a promise that could well go nowhere). Chris Whitty, meanwhile, told us that restrictions would gradually ease over time rather than come to an abrupt end – and they may have to be brought in against next winter. “Zero risk is not something which is a realistic possibility,” the chief medical officer said. We were also given the daunting figure that one in 50 people in England and one in 30 in London have Covid-19. It looks likely that this seven-week lockdown will last quite a bit longer.

Just as he has done before with track and trace, mass testing via Operation Moonshot, etc, the Prime Minister is highlighting the country’s new cause for optimism that will make everything good again: mass vaccinations. Johnson announced last night that 1.3 million people had been given their first jab, and set a target of giving a first dose to everyone in the top four priority groups by the middle of February. That means reaching all care home residents and staff, NHS staff, people aged 70 and over, and the extremely clinically vulnerable – around 13 million people. Can the government meet the logistical challenges posed by this aim? We sincerely hope so.

Keir Starmer has picked up on the new ambition and used his address to the nation responding to the fresh lockdown in England to say we were “the first country in the world to get the vaccine” – now “let’s be the first in the world to get our country vaccinated”. A government “worthy of the British people”, the Labour leader declared, would use this lockdown to “establish a massive, immediate, and round-the-clock vaccination programme”.

Asked when 300,000 vaccines a day would be carried out, Nadhim Zahawi this morning replied that he didn’t want to “bandy numbers around”. Unfortunately for this vaccine minister, the Prime Minister has already done just that. As the big problem is staffing, I’m told the Labour leadership wants the government to give extra capacity to the NHS to vaccinate people and enable the recruitment of an army of volunteers “who could help run vaccinate centres, organise the logistics and give NHS staff space to administer jabs”.

MPs will return to the House of Commons in another urgent recall, the second in a week, on this occasion to vote on the new lockdown that came into force legally overnight. With Covid figures like the ones we heard last night, few rebels are expected and of course Labour will support the measures. But there is plenty else to look out for in the Commons today, as Johnson and Starmer will go head-to-head on Covid developments and Gavin Williamson will be grilled on big education issues from the digital divide among pupils now at home to the BTEC exams. LabourList will be following all the action.