A leaked document gave a glimpse of the UK’s possible new normal with face masks, working from home and travel quarantine rules set to stay beyond July 19.
The Whitehall paper suggests that the government will stop short of urging workers to return to offices even after Freedom Day eventually arrives.
There’s also a suggestion that face masks will be required in some settings long term, as well as keeping post-travel isolation rules.
Anyone who has coronavirus symptoms will still be required to quarantine, according to the draft proposals, and concerns have been raised that more constraints will be needed if the disease surges again in the winter.
The document, seen by Politico, emerged as infuriated Tories predicted up to 70 MPs could inflict a bloody nose on Boris Johnson in a crunch lockdown vote.
The Prime Minister is facing a bruising mutiny from his benches as the Commons was asked to approve the delay of Freedom Day until July 19.
Victory is guaranteed for the government as Labour has thrown its backing behind the extension of the harsh restrictions.
The shift from Boris Johnson, amid warnings from scientists that the Indian variant will cause thousands of more deaths, has angered numerous Conservatives who claim that vaccines have protected the most vulnerable and the country must learn to live with the virus.
The Cabinet Office insisted no decisions had been taken on the guidance after July 19, which Boris Johnson has pledged will represent a terminus point for lockdown, and the premier said that the delay would save thousands of lives and enable millions more to get their first and second jabs.
But he insisted he’s confident he’ll finally be able to end restrictions on July 19, describing it as a terminus point, while declining to give a definite guarantee.
Jacob Rees-Mogg hinted at a growing division in Cabinet by suggesting it was wrong to keep restrictions in place once all vulnerable people and over 50s had been given their second jabs, a point which has already been established.
He said people below that age were not at particular risk, adding that overwhelmingly the most important thing was the number of deaths and that people going into hospital for a couple of days and coming out was not particularly important.
In an interview with the Conservative Home website, he added that ultimately, the NHS was there to serve the British people, not the British people there to serve the NHS, and hence they might need to spend more money on hospitals, and that you couldn’t run society just to stop the hospitals being full, otherwise they’d never let people get into their cars and drive anywhere or do any of the other things that people want to do, so that had to be some proportionality.
But once the government build the 40 new hospitals and recruit the 50,000 additional nurses that they promised in the 2019 manifesto, the NHS might not be under so much pressure again – the Tories just have to meet their election promises, but then when was the last time any of these parties fulfilled even half of their election promises?
But isn’t this just about scare tactics because Boris Johnson failed to build the hospitals and recruit the nurses required for an overpopulated country, but despite all the broken promises, the sheep keep voting for them – will they never learn?
Perhaps we should prepare for chaos? Because the government has just moved to the next phase, which means, they plan for you to lose all confidence, they intend for the culling of fools and they plan for chaos, and from all that chaos they hope that their new order will be demanded, and the society they wish to give is a vision of hell, and the society that they’re removing was at best tolerable.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 