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      Covid plan B rules are scrapped — but NHS chief warns virus hasn’t ‘magically disappeared’

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      Face masks won’t be required from next week and work-from-home advice is ending immediately after the prime minister announced the end of plan B rules in England.The legal duty to self-isolate with Covid-19 will also lapse from 24 March, Mr Johnson said, “just as we don’t place legal obligations on people to isolate if they have flu.”Face coverings will be scrapped in classrooms from this Thursday, with school communal areas to follow.The bonfire of Covid rules came after ONS data showed Covid-19 cases were falling in most parts of England and after government scientists judged the Omicron variant had “now peaked nationally”.But scrapping Covid measures “will do nothing to relieve the pressure” on hospitals and the virus hasn’t “magically disappeared,” nursing and NHS leaders warned.The NHS is still battling extreme pressures such as high levels of staff sickness, record-length delays in emergency care and a growing backlog that has left six million on waiting lists.The nation’s care watchdog, the Care Quality Commission, expressed particular concern over emergency departments and ambulance services.Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents hospitals, said ministers needed to “be honest with the public that a decision to lift restrictions is a trade-off”.He said: “Covid-19 has not magically disappeared, and we are likely to have to learn to live alongside it for years to come. Lifting restrictions doesn’t mean a return to normality is inevitable.“We will have greater freedoms but the cost – at least in the short term – will be that more people are likely to get sick with Covid, and that the health service will continue to have to deal with the extra burdens that this creates.”Pat Cullen, chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing, said loosening restrictions “will do nothing to relieve the pressure on the NHS” and that ministers “will regret sending the wrong signal to the public for political expediency”.“With so many Covid-19 patients still in hospital, it would be very premature to conclude this wave is over,” she said. “That is not what our members are telling us.”Latest NHS figures show there are 16,218 patients with Covid-19 in hospitals across England – down from 10 January when 17,120 were recorded in hospital. Meanwhile, admissions to hospitals in the northeast, Yorkshire and the northwest continued to rise this week. Aris Katzourakis, an expert virologist at the University of Oxford, said: “While there are some encouraging signs, it is not yet entirely clear that it is safe to do so right now without risking further resurgence of the virus.“It seems a premature decision based on where we are now with case numbers and the stresses on the NHS.”Dr Michael Head, senior research fellow in global health at the University of Southampton, said: “The UK will have a long backlog of consequences to address that have emerged from previous decision-making, but there may at least be a component of looking forward, rather than back.“This includes the huge waiting list for both urgent and routine healthcare, that could not be addressed before due to the consequences of ‘too much covid’.”The ONS data shows that one in 20 people in private households in England – about 3 million – is estimated to have had coronavirus in the week to 15 January, down from 3.7 million in the week to 6 January.In Scotland, around one in 20, or 236,000 people, is estimated to have had Covid-19 last week, down from 297,400.For Northern Ireland, the latest estimate is also one in 20, but the number of people testing positive is up slightly from 99,200 to 104,300, with the ONS describing the trend there as “uncertain”.Meanwhile, in Wales, the estimate is one in 25, or 112,100 people, down from 169,100. More

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      Christian Wakeford: Who is the Tory MP who defected to Labour?

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      In an effort to maximise the political damage on Boris Johnson, Christian Wakeford, a member of the 2019 intake of Conservative MPs, made public his dramatic decision to defect to Labour – just over 10 minutes before prime minister’s questions.With the prime minister already facing the threat of a no-confidence vote, the 37-year-old added to his growing in-tray of problems, becoming the first MP to defect from the Tory party to Labour since 2007, when Quentin Davies crossed the floor of the Commons.The Bury South MP – previously critical of the “indefensible” reports of parties in No 10 during Covid restrictions – had been in conversations with Labour for some months over the move and first met with Sir Keir Starmer on Monday.In a letter to the prime minister on Wednesday, the former councillor and ‘red wall’ MP hit out at Boris Johnson’s “disgraceful” conduct in recent weeks and claimed the Conservatives were “incapable of offering the leadership and government this country deserves”.The evening before defecting to Labour, he made clear his feelings about the prime minister, as he revealed he had submitted a letter of no confidence in Mr Johnson to the chair of the 1922 committee of backbench Tory MPs, Sir Graham Brady.His name also featured in newspaper reports in November 2021, after he was said to have called the disgraced Conservative Owen Paterson a “c***” to his face during a botched vote in Parliament to protect the former MP from a 30-day suspension. More

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      No-confidence vote in Boris Johnson would be delayed until after ‘partygate’ report, Tories say

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      Any no-confidence vote to topple Boris Johnson will be delayed until after Sue Gray’s report into the ‘partygate’ scandal, The Independent has been told.More letters have been submitted by Tory MPs demanding the vote – which was held within 24 hours when the threshold was reached to trigger the contest against Theresa May, in 2018.But senior Conservatives say Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 Committee of backbenchers, will not arrange the vote until after the Gray report, one saying that would make “no sense”.Another suggested Sir Graham – a critic of Mr Johnson – would also want to delay until after the verdict has been delivered, to increase the chances of him losing and being forced out.“It would not make any sense to hold the vote until after Sue Gray has reported,” said one Tory MP close to discussions about the timing of any vote.“There is nothing in the rules to say that a confidence vote must be held immediately after the threshold for signatures is reached.“After the inquiry, some MPs may wish to withdraw their letters – as well as others who might submit them, depending on what her report says about the prime minister.”One former minister said: “Graham will want to delay the vote, because he wants to be a minister – and he knows that won’t happen while Boris Johnson is prime minister.”Only Sir Graham knows whether the number of letters demanding a no-confidence vote is close to the tally of 54 – 15 per cent of the parliamentary party – required for it to happen.The rebels’ momentum has slowed with the shock defection of Christian Wakeford to Labour, a display of disloyalty which has provoked waverers to “rally round”.Most Conservative MPs have said they want to wait for Ms Gray’s report – which Mr Johnson told MPs would not be completed until “next week”.The senior civil servant had been expected to finish her work before the end of this week – but her task has grown with further allegations about lockdown-busting events.Some Tories report that anger at Mr Johnson and the parties is not on the scale of the backlash against the revelation of Dominic Cummings’ lockdown-busting drive around County Durham, last year.But others say it is impossible to defend the prime minister’s explanation that he attended the party on 20 May, 2020 – but did not realise a party was taking place.“It is like walking into Buchenwald and not realising it is a concentration camp, but thinking it is a prison,” one Tory MP said.“It is like going to a brothel and claiming you didn’t realise that the women there are selling themselves for sex.”Another former Johnson ally said a no-confidence vote would be fatal for him eventually – even if he survived the vote itself.“It will be just a matter of time before he goes. That is the lesson of what happened to Theresa May, to John Major and to Margaret Thatcher,” the MP said. More

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      Omicron in retreat but Covid not over yet, says Sajid Javid as he scraps precautions

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      The Omicron variant of “in retreat” but the Covid-19 pandemic is “not over yet”, Sajid Javid has said.The health secretary was speaking on Wednesday evening as he confirmed that the government would be scrapping its ‘Plan B’ regulations.Masks will no longer be mandatory in shops or on public transport and vaccine passes will not be required for mass events. But restrictions on travel and a requirement to self-isolate will remain for now.Boris Johnson earlier in the day announced the changes to MPs in the House of Commons.”This plan has worked and the data shows that Omicron is in retreat,” Mr Javid said at a news conference later in the day.The health secretary described the relaxation of measures as a “major milestone”, and added: “But it’s not the end of the road and we shouldn’t see this as the finish line because we cannot eradicate this virus and its future variants.”Instead we must learn to live with Covid in the same way we have to live with flu. And we will be setting out our long-term plan for living with Covid-19 this spring.”Discussing his future plan to “live with Covid”, the health secretary told a press conference at Downing Street: “The way we are going to do this is we’re going to have to find a way to remove almost all of these restrictions and get life completely back to normal but with one or two really big things that I think will be there for a while.”That is I think probably the need to vaccinate, I can’t tell you how often that will be, but I think vaccinations will remain hugely important just as we have to have annual vaccinations protecting older people against flu.”I think antivirals and treatments will continue to play a big role, especially for those that might be more exposed, and I think testing, it’s great where we are today with testing and I think it will improve over time.”These pharmaceutical defences of the vaccines, antivirals, monoclonal antibodies, and testing, I think they will be the cornerstone of our future defences.”At the same event, Mr Javid also confirmed that at-risk children under the age of 12 would now be vaccinated for Covid-19.The cabinet minister said that the government’s JCVI advisory committee says “that we should vaccinate under-12s that are at risk and that is exactly what we plan to do”.He added: “We will start that this month, but they are keeping that under review to see if we should expand that more broadly to everyone in that cohort”.The latest data released on 19 January showed 359 deaths from Covid-19 were reported in the previous 24 hours, with 1,865 from the virus in the previous seven days. A further 108,069 people tested positive, with 652,469 having done so in the last seven days. More

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      ‘A city seething’: Fury as council boss Kate Josephs clings on to £190,000 a year job in Sheffield following party

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      Technically speaking, Kate Josephs didn’t lie.For weeks, the former head of the government’s Covid taskforce was asked by journalists in Sheffield – where she is now the city council’s chief executive – if rumours she had attended illegal Downing Street parties in December 2020 were accurate.For weeks, she flatly denied they were. Reporters were told their questions were vexatious. The editor of the city newspaper, The Star, was repeatedly assured Josephs had never had drinks at Number 10.What she failed to disclose, however, was that she herself had thrown her own leaving party at the Cabinet Office right next door.As the rest of the country struggled without seeing friends and family that Christmas, Josephs – the very person in charge of drawing up those restrictions – enjoyed a wine and champagne bash with colleagues. An email invite was reportedly sent to more than 40 people in departments across Whitehall.Now, after her duplicity was finally uncovered, Sheffield is a city incandescent.While Boris Johnson’s own conduct continues to cause as much fury here as anywhere else, it is the behaviour of the Halifax-born chief exec – who earns £190,000 a year leading the council – that feels both more personal and more egregious.The fact she appears to have deliberately misled (if not quite lied to) the very people she is supposed to serve has added an aggravating factor that many here feel is unforgivable. The fact she has since apologised unreservedly – “I am truly sorry that I did this and for the anger people will feel” – appears to have done little to temper that sense. Pertinently, amid growing calls for her to resign or face disciplinary procedures, there is now a sense that this crisis is beginning to engulf the entire political leadership of this Labour-and-Green-run authority.“The city is furious, it is dismayed,” says Lord Paul Scriven, the Lib Dem peer who led the city council here between 2008 and 2011 “Not just because she broke the rules when the rest of us were following them but because she tried to hide it. People feel she has to take personal responsibility for that.“I was stopped nine times at the station this week. I had to catch a later train because so many people were telling me how angry they were. I’ve had one person write to me to say that, on the day she was sipping champagne, they had to say a last goodbye to their mother-in-law on an iPad. Sheffield deserves better than that.”Her ability to do her job effectively, he reckons, is no longer credible: “all this hurt can now only be settled if she takes a good long look in the mirror, does the honourable thing and…resigns”.That she has not done so already – indeed, she is currently enjoying paid annual leave – appears to only be exacerbating and widening the potential fallout of the scandal.Although the council has announced cross-party committee to investigate the issue, the fact that all senior councillors have stonewalled questions on the subject has only added to local fury. Residents here feel like their concerns are being ignored by the very people who should be representing them.And, with local elections barely three months away, there is some suggestion Labour and the Greens may end up paying at the ballot box – creating the bizarre possibility that both parties could lose South Yorkshire council seats over a scandal that started with a Tory prime minister.“We all have to make a decision,” says Lord Scriven. “Do we stand on the side of the vast majority of Sheffielders who have made huge personal sacrifices in a pandemic or do we stand on the side of a person who admitted she broke the rules and only came clean when she broke the rules?“Councillors now have to make their own decision, and the people of Sheffield will then make up their minds about the integrity of those particularly councillors. But they need to understand this city has integrity running through it and it’s not in a position to forgive and forget those senior people who let down the city and let down the side.”A guide to the public mood, indeed, may be The Star’s inbox. It’s had more letters about Josephs in the last five days than on any other topic this century, according to the editor – including Brexit. The vast majority, it barely needs saying, are not happy.“People feel she was bang to rights and I think they are astonished the council isn’t taking a stronger line,” says James Whitworth the paper’s award-winning cartoonist. “A reasonable person cannot sell this any other way than what she did was morally bankrupt, and people want that redressed. They are seething.”The bigger problem, he suggests, may be that, while Labour might lose a few seats at May’s elections if they don’t act on the issue, the party will almost certainly remain in control of the council as they have done for most of the last half century.“So what happens is people feel impotent and they turn off local politics completely,” he says. “They become apathetic, and that damages democracy here – all because one person couldn’t follow the rules that she herself set.”Yet for now Josephs – and council leader Terry Fox – give the impression of trying to tough out the consequences.That cross-party committee will look at the issue but, while such a committee would be the first statutory step towards any disciplinary, no details have been released on what exactly it will investigate or when it will conclude.Josephs herself, meanwhile, has refused to comment since apologising in a limited statement on Friday.For now, then, Sheffield – where almost 1,400 people have died with Covid – waits, still incandescent. 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      What is ‘plan A’, when is it returning and what Covid rules have changed?

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      Prime minister Boris Johnson announced the relaxation of “plan B” Covid-19 restrictions in the Commons on Wednesday, paving the way for a further roll-back of rules in the weeks to come. Mr Johnson said that compulsory facemasks will be scrapped from next week and suggested that people with Covid-19 may soon be spared mandatory isolation. Compulsory Covid certificates will also be dropped from Thursday but Mr Johnson said “organisations can, of course, choose to use the NHS Covid Pass voluntarily”. Government guidance asking people to work from home was dropped from Wednesday, meaning people are free to return to the office straight away. Children will no longer have to wear facemasks in classrooms from Thursday. In his statement to parliament, Boris Johnson hailed the return to “plan A in England”. Mr Johnson was referring to the government’s Autumn and Winter Plan, set out in November last year. This detailed “plan A”, which the government said was a “comprehensive approach designed to steer the country through autumn and winter 2021-22”. “Plan A” included five steps; the first being “building our defences through pharmaceutical interventions”, such as vaccines, antiviral drugs and therapeutic treatments. The second was based on the government’s Test, Trace and Isolate programme and involved identifying and isolating positive cases of coronavirus. Mr Johnson told the Commons on Wednesday: “As we return to plan A, the House will know that some measures still remain, including those on self-isolation. “In particular, it is still a legal requirement for those who have tested positive for Covid to self-isolate.”He added that, though the isolation period had been reduced to five days with two negative tests, the requirements could shrink even further. “There will soon come a time when we can remove the legal requirement to self-isolate altogether – just as we don’t place legal obligations on people to isolate if they have flu,” Mr Johnson said. The self-isolation rules expire on March 24, but the prime minister told the Commons that he would seek to bring forward that date if Covid data allowed it. Supporting the NHS and social care is point three of the plan, and clear guidance and communication to the public is point four. The fifth part of “Plan A” is to “pursue an international approach: helping to vaccinate the world and managing risks at the border.” More

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      UK government U-turns on ‘double jobbing’ for Northern Ireland politicians

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      The UK government is to drop controversial plans to reintroduce “double jobbing” for Northern Irish MPs, following an outcry.Ministers had been planning to change the rules to let MPs also sit as MLAs without the need to step down from their seats. But the move was opposed by all of the main parties in Northern Ireland except the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).Critics of the change pointed out that the change would allow DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson to stand for the assembly while remaining MP for Lagan Valley.This would avoid a potentially difficult by-election for Sir Jeffrey’s party, which has been struggling in the polls. The DUP has denied that it has struck any agreement with the UK government over the issue.Following a question from a Tory MP, Boris Johnson announced on Wednesday that the government was dropping support for the double jobbing amendment. The chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, Simon Hoare, had asked the prime minister: “The vast majority of people and indeed politicians across Northern Ireland believe that whatever the question, double-jobbing is not the answer, could I urge my Right Honourable friend to listen to the majority and ask him not to move the Government amendment in the other place later today?”Mr Johnson replied: “I’m grateful to my honourable friend and I’m advised that I think the amendment in question is indeed going to be withdrawn.”Under the plans, MPs would have been elected MLAs and remain as Members of Parliament until the following general election – only quitting their parliamentary seats at that point.The current law banning double jobbing in Northern Ireland came into effect in 2016. In an open letter to Mr Johnson on Tuesday six parties called for the plan to be dropped. It was signed by Alliance leader Naomi Long, Green Party NI leader Clare Bailey, UUP leader Doug Beattie, People Before Profit MLA Gerry Carroll, SDLP leader Colum Eastwood and Sinn Fein deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill.But DUP leader Sir Jeffrey said: “I’ve had a lot of people saying we want you to remain our voice at Westminster but we also want you to lead your team into the Assembly elections.” He added: “To be absolutely clear, there was never any question of any deal around any of this issue.” More

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      Met Police facing legal action over ‘failure’ to probe Downing Street Christmas party

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      The Metropolitan Police is facing legal action if it fails to investigate reports of the Downing Street Christmas party in 2020, according to campaigners.The Good Law Project last week said it had put the force on notice that it would take legal action if it did not investigate the gathering.On Wednesday a spokeswoman for the campaign organisation, which uses the law to “protect the interests of the public”, said it had filed its claim in court.In a statement on its website, the project said: “When we received the Met’s formal pre-action response to our judicial review claim, over its failure to apply the same criminal law to the Prime Minister as it applies to others, they told us not to publish it. More