A quarantine dodge by Boris Johnson would unleash a massive ‘do as I say, not as I do’ row
The timing could hardly be worse. A little more than 24 hours before what he used to call Freedom Day, Boris Johnson is under pressure to self-isolate.
The reason: a face-to-face meeting the prime minister held with Health Secretary Sajid Javid, who has now tested positive for COVID-19, in 10 Downing Street on Friday morning.
There will be some sympathy for Mr Javid. After all, he has had two jabs, both Oxford AstraZeneca, on 17 March and 16 May, and thankfully he only has “very mild” symptoms so far.
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Health Secretary has coronavirus
As for the prime minister, he was at Chequers when Mr Javid made his announcement at lunchtime on Saturday revealing that he “felt a bit groggy” on Friday evening and so had a lateral flow test.
While the PM will no doubt be angry and frustrated at being “pinged”, there are worse places to self-isolate than the 16th-century grace-and-favour mansion in the beautiful rolling countryside of the Chiltern Hills.
The PM, it has to be said, has a reputation as someone who thinks the rules that apply to everyone else don’t apply to him. But will he wriggle out of the isolation rules this time?
No doubt he would prefer to follow the example of Michael Gove, who sidestepped quarantine when he was “pinged” after attending the Chelsea-Manchester City Champions League final in Porto.
Mr Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, was able to take part in a study, led by Public Health England and NHS Test and Trace, that examines whether daily testing can be used as an alternative to self-isolation.
People who have a lateral flow test each morning are allowed to attend their workplace as normal and do exercise, but are not allowed to socialise with others.
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But if the PM dodges self-isolation, at a time when 520,000 are isolating and there is growing public anger and resentment over the “pingdemic”, there will have been a furious outcry.
“If Boris doesn’t isolate and uses this ‘pilot scheme’, I will be encouraging my constituents to do the same,” one unnamed Tory MP was quoted as saying.
“There cannot be one rule for us and one for everyone else.”
Quite so. A quarantine dodge by the PM would unleash a massive “do as I say, not as I do” row. Remember the furore over Dominic Cummings lockdown-busting eyesight test last year? This would be 10 times worse.
Members of the public are already reported to be switching off their COVID-19 app “in droves”. A prime ministerial body swerve of isolation rules would potentially leave the policy in tatters.
The pingdemic is already largely discredited because of the way it is leaving businesses, public transport and the NHS desperately short of staff and prompting warnings of food shortages.
Where there may be less sympathy for Mr Javid, however, is over his decision to scrap isolation for the double jabbed, but not for another month, on 16 August.
Now Mr Javid has tested positive and the PM has been “pinged”, even if they brought forward the 16 August change, they would be accused of acting out of self-interest.
So the PM should grin and bear it, take one for the team and enjoy the Chilterns countryside. Freedom Day? Not for him surely!
The TON Foundation could have avoided its golden visa controversy in the UAE with a brief legal review, a local lawyer told Cointelegraph.
Politics
Norman Tebbit: Former Tory minister who served in Margaret Thatcher’s government dies aged 94
Norman Tebbit, the former Tory minister who served in Margaret Thatcher’s government, has died at the age of 94.
Lord Tebbit died “peacefully at home” late on Monday night, his son William confirmed.
One of Mrs Thatcher’s most loyal cabinet ministers, he was a leading political voice throughout the turbulent 1980s.
He held the posts of employment secretary, trade secretary, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Conservative party chairman before resigning as an MP in 1992 after his wife was left disabled by the Provisional IRA’s bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton.
He considered standing for the Conservative leadership after Mrs Thatcher’s resignation in 1990, but was committed to taking care of his wife.
Margaret Thatcher and Norman Tebbit in 1987 after her election victory. Pic: PA
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch called him an “icon” in British politics and was “one of the leading exponents of the philosophy we now know as Thatcherism”.
“But to many of us it was the stoicism and courage he showed in the face of terrorism, which inspired us as he rebuilt his political career after suffering terrible injuries in the Brighton bomb, and cared selflessly for his wife Margaret, who was gravely disabled in the bombing,” she wrote on X.
“He never buckled under pressure and he never compromised. Our nation has lost one of its very best today and I speak for all the Conservative family and beyond in recognising Lord Tebbit’s enormous intellect and profound sense of duty to his country.
“May he rest in peace.”
Lord Tebbit and his wife Margaret stand outside the Grand Hotel in Brighton. Pic: PA
Tory grandee David Davis told Sky News Lord Tebbit was a “great working class Tory, always ready to challenge establishment conventional wisdom for the bogus nonsense it often was”.
“He was one of Thatcher’s bravest and strongest lieutenants, and a great friend,” Sir David said.
“He had to deal with the agony that the IRA visited on him and his wife, and he did so with characteristic unflinching courage. He was a great man.”
Reform leader Nigel Farage said Lord Tebbit “gave me a lot of help in my early days as an MEP”.
He was “a great man. RIP,” he added.
Lord Tebbit as employment secretary in 1983 with Mrs Thatcher. Pic: PA
Born to working-class parents in north London, he was made a life peer in 1992, where he sat until he retired in 2022.
Lord Tebbit was trade secretary when he was injured in the Provisional IRA’s bombing in Brighton during the Conservative Party conference in 1984.
Five people died in the attack and Lord Tebbit’s wife, Margaret, was left paralysed from the neck down. She died in 2020 at the age of 86.
Before entering politics, his first job, aged 16, was at the Financial Times where he had his first experience of trade unions and vowed to “break the power of the closed shop”.
He then trained as a pilot with the RAF – at one point narrowly escaping from the burning cockpit of a Meteor 8 jet – before becoming the MP for Epping in 1970 then for Chingford in 1974.
Lord Tebbit during an EU debate in the House of Lords in 1997. Pic: PA
As a cabinet minister, he was responsible for legislation that weakened the powers of the trade unions and the closed shop, making him the political embodiment of the Thatcherite ideology that was in full swing.
His tough approach was put to the test when riots erupted in Brixton, south London, against the backdrop of high rates of unemployment and mistrust between the black community and the police.
He was frequently misquoted as having told the unemployed to “get on your bike”, and was often referred to as “Onyerbike” for some time afterwards.
What he actually said was he grew up in the ’30s with an unemployed father who did not riot, “he got on his bike and looked for work, and he kept looking till he found it”.
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