Quarantine plan warning
HEATHROW Airport warned “significant gaps” remain in the hotel quarantine plans coming into force tomorrow morning.
Travellers to England from 33 “red list” countries must arrive at Heathrow, Gatwick, London City, Birmingham or Farnborough
Airfield and quarantine for 10 days in government-managed hotels at their own expense. The £1,750 cost includes coronavirus tests, escorts to the hotel and security.
But the UK’S largest airport said the Government must ensure adequate resources are in place to avoid compromising the safety of passengers and those working at the airport.
A spokesman said: “We have been working hard with the Government to try to ensure the successful implementation of the policy from Monday, but some significant gaps remain and we are yet to receive the necessary reassurances.”
Travellers from “red list” countries who fail to quarantine in such hotels face fines of £5,000 to £10,000, while those who conceal where they have travelled from face up to 10 years in jail. In Scotland, the rules apply to arrivals by air from any country.
THE Duchess of Sussex may have to give up her title if she ever wants to run for political office in the States.
It is rumoured Meghan would be interested in moving into politics and a friend told Vanity Fair: “One of the reasons she was so keen not to give up her American citizenship was so she had the option to go into politics.”
But, if she did have ambitions that stretched to Washington, the keys to the Oval Office come with a catch, with constitutional experts warning that she may have to give up her title.
Bernard Wolfsdorf, former president of the American Immigration Lawyers’ Association, said: “There is no way she would be able to use her title if she held public office in the US. Her oath of allegiance in the US is clearly contrary to her royal title.
“If the Duchess was elected to the office of the US presidency, this would run afoul of the Constitution such that she would have to renounce her royal title, and cease being a member of the Royal Family.”
Although Meghan, 39, has taken a “step back” from being a senior member of the Royal Family over the past year, “she has public duties that support the monarchy, and auxiliary duties related to those obligations and family duties,” sayswolfsdorf.
“She may have indicated that she will no longer perform these in order to avoid losing her US citizenship but running for office would, in my opinion, create a direct conflict.” But Meghan’s dilemma won’t present itself immediately.
President Joe Biden may stand for re-election in November 2024, or could make way for his vice president, Kamala Harris, to run for the Oval Office. If either lost to the Republican challenger in 2024, Meghan could be in a position to run for the White House in 2028.
With her outspoken advocacy for voting rights, gender equality, diversity, the environment and mental health, Meghan is thought most likely to enter politics as a Democratic Party candidate.
She plunged into the political arena before November’s election, when she and husband Prince Harry urged voters to “reject hate speech, misinformation and online negativity” – viewed by many as a direct attack on Donald Trump.
White House sources claim to be unaware of any official moves by Meghan to enter politics but would not be surprised if she sought out the high-profile role of a White House ambassador for one of her favourite causes.
A senior White House source said: “There’s no question that she could play a great advocacy role, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it, should she want to go in that direction.”
‘It would create a direct conflict’
FOR the second time in this pandemic parents are trying desperately to balance working from home with home-schooling their children. On Mumsnet we’ve seen the impact on children – dubbed Generation Lockdown – and on their parents.
Mumsnet users are strong believers that following the guidance to get the pandemic under control – when so many people have lost their lives – must be the priority.
If schools closing brings down the R-rate then many parents understand it’s a necessary measure to save yet more heartache.
But even so, when Boris Johnson appeared on TV to announce that schools would remain shut after Christmas, one Mumsnet user wrote: “I put my head down on the ironing board and cried.”
The impact must not be understated, because we’re going to have so much work to do to make it up to this generation of children.
Parents have told us how increasingly worried they are about their children’s wellbeing and development and how helpless they feel.
A huge 75 per cent say school lockdowns are harming children’s education, 78 per cent have said it’s harmful to their children’s mental health and 90 per cent have said it is harming their social lives.
One user wrote: “I watch my teenagers struggle more each day.
“They should not be cooped up with parents for extended periods of time with no exit date. Their mental health is deteriorating fast – they can see no end in sight.”
Another said: “My child is six and their behaviour has plummeted, sleep patterns disrupted.
They are missing out on so much, not just education, but swimming lessons, socialising, teamwork.
“And they are one of the lucky ones – we’re motivated, engaged parents and have a large garden.”
Parents, and particularly mothers, are buckling under the weight too. Even before Covid-19, all the data showed that women working out of the home tended to take on more of the childcare, and more of the domestic responsibilities, than their male partners.
Under lockdown, in families where both parents are working from home, that hasn’t changed.
Eight out of 10 such mothers said the bulk of homeschooling fell to them. And then there’s all the extra cooking, cleaning and entertaining of bored children who can’t see their friends. Yes, of course there are dads who more than pull their weight, and good for them – but there aren’t enough of them.
We’re hearing from women driven to the edge trying to teach fronted adverbials and learn what on earth a number bond is, while holding down their own demanding job requiring an eye for detail and a constant online presence.
As one put it: “I wake up at 5am to work for two hours before my children wake up.
“Then my husband and I homeschool each child one to one. If I have work due I stay up most of the night to do it. There’s simply not enough time to work full-time
and look after children full-time. It’s impossible.”
For many, a constant stream of interruptions, multiple children’s school work and competing priorities can leave mothers feeling like they are simultaneously a bad employee and a bad parent.
Unsurprisingly, three quarters of mothers on Mumsnet tell us that the pandemic has had a negative impact on their own mental health.
For some, getting furloughed can be a huge relief. Some have even told us that being made redundant at least meant they could focus fully on homeschooling.
But driving women away from the workplace has an enormous impact on society as a whole. Some employers are offering paid – or partially paid – parental leave while most children are unable to go to school.the Government needs to support employers to do this.
We have known since launching the Mumsnet’s Family Friendly scheme a decade ago, how highly employees value flexibility and how much they give back to employers who offer it.
Focusing on output rather than presenteeism can take some of the pressure off. That’s not to say that employees without children should pick up the slack. Far from it.
But if we want women with children to be able to stay in work, and help themselves and their children through this pandemic, then we need to act now.
CRUSADE GENERATION LOCKDOWN Never let them lose out
Of course there are dads who more than pull their weight, but there aren’t e nough of them
ANYONE out there think the following: not revealing you’d been on a trip to Portugal is akin to nonfatal poisoning, indecent assault, possessing a gun or threatening to kill someone? Chances are, unless you happen to be sitting next to Health Secretary Matt Hancock, you agree that the only people who appear to be “tripping” over this are the members of the Government who agreed to this deranged and oppressive lunacy.
Let’s establish one thing straight away: it is imperative you are completely truthful about the countries you have visited when filling in your locator form prior to returning to the UK. Anything else is grossly irresponsible and, in truth, dicing with potential death for you and everyone you come across.
But last week’s announcement that as of tomorrow anyone seeking to conceal they’d been to or through any of the 33 “red list” countries would be prosecuted and face a possible prison term of 10 years is ridiculously over the top.
Since when did the laws of the land mean we can lock someone up who has tested negative and therefore poses no risk, for a longer stretch than we can an armed robber?
Just think it through... a perfectly healthy person who has wrongly lied about visiting Portugal could be behind bars for 10 years! If it was anywhere else on the planet you’d be excused for thinking it was the work of some crazed dictatorship.
As he unveiled the deluded details of this absurdity, it’s fair to say Mr Hancock appeared to be both relishing the moment and revelling in his “tough guy” image.
With a steely glare he said he’d “make no excuses” for the toughness of these measures and would “stop at nothing” to get the virus in check. Hang on, “stop at nothing!” What might that mean? And if it was that important, why have they “stopped at” not doing it for the thick end of 12 months? Bolting horses and
stable doors gaping wide seem to spring to mind, don’t they?
Just how far are they prepared to go? There are daily stories of people weeping as they are denied a farewell to dying loved ones. Last week one woman who had been married for more than 50 years was allowed just 10 minutes to say goodbye to her husband prior to his death. She hadn’t seem him for nine months.
Elderly relatives battling dementia are left in care homes wondering what on earth has happened to their loved ones as we are barred from visiting them – but waving through the window at a
bemused grandparent is bizarrely seen as acceptable.
We have surrendered our civil liberties at a breathless pace and agreed not to work, socialise, party and even – until recently – pray together.
The only way this might be justified is if we’d been able to hold Covid at bay, but while the vaccination rate in the UK is a world leader, the country also leads the grim tables of figures in numbers of deaths per head of population. So the killer is here – as are unwelcome mutations whether from Kent or South Africa – and are we going to keep expanding the number of countries on that red list? If so, we’d better build more jails.
If you bring in laws that are seen as ludicrously disproportionate or unduly savage, you risk losing all respect. That is what has happened here.
History is littered with tyrants who said that the ends justified the means, whatever they might have been. Amazingly, a Conservative government that loves to boast of its liberal views has now gone down that path.