‘UK unity at risk unless PM listens to concerns’
BORIS Johnson has been warned he may cause a fracturing of national unity if he fails to listen to regional concerns about the easing of lockdown restrictions.
Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham spoke out as a poll reported public support for the UK Government’s handling of the Covid-19 crisis had slipped.
Mr Burnham said the Prime Minister did not inform civic leaders of his easing of restrictions in advance and said the dropping of the Stay at Home message felt “premature”.
While cases of coronavirus have been easing in the South East, Mr Burnham believes the loosening of restrictions came too quickly for the North.
“On the eve of a new working week, the PM was on TV ‘actively encouraging’ a return to work. Even though that would clearly put more cars on roads and people on trams, no-one in government thought it important to tell the cities that they would have to cope with that,” Mr Burnham wrote in The Observer.
“The surprisingly permissive package might well be right for the South East, given the fall in cases there. But my gut feeling told me it was too soon for the North.
“If the government carries on in the same vein, expect to see an even greater fracturing of national unity. Different places will adopt their own messaging and policies.”
Speaking to BBC Breakfast yesterday, Mr Burnham called for the government to publish a regional breakdown of the R value – which measures how many people on average one infected person transmits the disease to – to help local authorities decide when to reopen schools following opposition from unions to government plans to start sending some primary school children back from June 1.
He said: “There’s a very different picture in the north, particularly in the north east, where the R is the highest, so I can understand concerns [about lifting lockdown measures]. “Let’s get back around the table, look at the evidence and have some flexibility in terms of how [children] return to school because it will be different for different places.”
The government has announced a £93 million investment to bring forward the opening of a new vaccine manufacturing centre ready to begin production if a coronavirus vaccine is found.
The not-for-profit facility – on the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxford – will open 12 months earlier than planned in summer 2021, and will have the capacity to produce enough doses for the entire UK population in as little as six months, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said. Elsewhere, Education Secretary Gavin Williamson has appealed to teaching unions to work with the government to find “practical solutions” to enable schools in England to begin re-opening.
Talks on Friday between union representatives and government scientific advisers, intended to provide assurance about the government’s proposals to enable children to return safely, ended with union leaders saying it had raised more questions than answers.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has called for more patience from the nation as it plots a course back to normality, saying he is backing the British public’s fortitude and common sense to help the country recover.
Writing in the Mail on Sunday, Mr Johnson acknowledged frustrations over government plans for emerging from the coronavirus lockdown.
Restrictions in England have been eased – and the government message softened from “stay at home” to “stay alert” – but Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales have not followed suit.
Mr Johnson said he could “understand people will feel frustrated with some of the new rules” but urged Britons to remain patient so that the country “does not risk reversing the gains we have so far won in the fight against the virus”.
“We are trying to do something that has never had to be done before – moving the country out of a full lockdown, in a way which is safe and does not risk sacrificing all of your hard work,” he wrote.
“I recognise what we are now asking is more complex than simply staying at home, but this is a complex problem and we need to trust in the good sense of the British people.
“If we all stick at it, then we’ll be able, gradually, to get rid of the complexities and the restrictions... but we must move slowly, and at the right time.”
However, only 39% of Britons approve of the government’s response – down from 48% a week ago – according to the Opinium survey of 2,005 adults on Wednesday and Thursday.
Those saying they disapproved rose from 36% to 42%.
Adam Drummond, the head of political polling at Opinium, said that it was the first time disapproval of the government’s handling of the crisis was higher than approval.