Lockdown by stealth: the result of Johnson’s weakness and Tory turmoil

The most notable aspect of the latest press conference wasn’t something Boris Johnson said – it was what he didn’t say. Chris Whitty warned that the Omicron variant is spreading at “an absolutely phenomenal pace” and people will soon be infected in “very, very, very large numbers”. People hoped the pandemic might be over by now; instead, there are “two epidemics on top of one another”. After recorded Covid cases yesterday reached their highest ever daily total – 78,610 – the chief medical officer predicted that “records will be broken a lot over the next few weeks”. But isn’t Omicron more transmissible yet less severe? Whitty said: “If the peak of this is twice as great, then halving the size of the hospitalisation rate, you still end up in the same place. And this peak is going very fast.”

The Prime Minister did not announce new measures but simply confirmed that the government is sticking with ‘plan B’, which caused him quite enough trouble in the voting lobbies this week. Standing beside him, however, Whitty advised: “don’t mix with people you don’t have to” and prioritise only things that “really matter”. The implication is that Christmas parties should be cancelled, which contradicts the No 10 line. This is lockdown by stealth: without financial support, devastating for many people’s incomes and businesses. Omicron has taken us back to March 2020. The problem is that MPs have been promised a vote on any new restrictions over Christmas, with parliament recalled (though no virtual arrangements have been made, which would make it a serious super-spreader event) – and it seems too many Tory MPs would need to see chaos in hospitals before they vote for more restrictions and support.

Keir Starmer demanded at PMQs that Johnson “get his house in order”, while also concluding that this is not possible because the Prime Minister has “no hope of gaining the moral authority” needed unless he admits to law-breaking parties. Unfortunately, the Labour leader’s blunt assertions about Johnson’s weakness are correct – at the precise moment that we most need the Prime Minister to have room for manoeuvre. Jobs will be lost because he is hamstrung by his own backbenchers. And where is Rishi Sunak? With one eye on a future leadership contest, albeit not quite as obviously as Liz Truss, the Chancellor would rather appeal to laissez-faire Conservatives than take the kind of action that made him popular with the wider electorate. Tory turmoil is affecting people all over the country.

That turmoil could be deepened by the result of the North Shropshire by-election taking place today. The Conservative-held seat could be won by an opposition party. But which one? Labour shadow minister Yasmin Qureshi bluntly told Times Radio last weekend that “we know, realistically, we have no chance of winning”. Others in the party are fuming because they believe the opportunity to gain this seat – where Labour came second in the last three elections – was thrown away by the leadership. Starmer’s spokesperson yesterday denied giving up hope of winning it. In a LabourList piece on tactical voting and progressive alliances this week, Luke Akehurst made the case in favour of Labour’s candidate Ben Wood and asked readers not to “play into the cynical hands of the Lib Dems”. And yet the Lib Dems seem confident. LabourList will be covering the result overnight.