PM’S RALLYING CRY
After a chaotic week, Boris’s rallying cry in the MoS, as he starts work on a major speech next month revealing his vision for rebuilding the nation
BRITISH people’s ‘fortitude’ will enable then to survive the Covid-19 crisis and regain ‘the freedoms they hold dear’, Boris Johnson declares today.
The Prime Minister says that the epidemic has brought out ‘the best in humanity’ and that the public’s ‘perseverance’ and ‘good common sense’ will enable the country to ‘inch forwards’ out of lockdown and towards ‘muchmissed normality’.
Writing in today’s Mail on Sunday, Mr Johnson also announces that an Oxfordshire research centre will be opening a year ahead of schedule in an attempt to fast-track a vaccine against the coronavirus.
Mr Johnson’s exclusive article, printed on the facing page, will be seen as an attempt to draw a line under the chaotic days in Westminster which followed his televised address to the nation last Sunday, which left many people confused about the rules about meeting friends and family.
The Prime Minister clarifies today: ‘You can now spend as much time as you like outdoors, for example sitting and enjoying the fresh air, picnicking, or sunbathing. You can meet one other person from a different household outdoors, provided you maintain social distancing.
‘You can exercise outdoors as often as you wish and play sport. Even with these changes, it’s vital that people stay alert, keep their distance from others and carry on washing their hands regularly’.
Mr Johnson’s remarks come as he is understood to have started work on a major speech to be delivered in the middle of next month, which will lay out his detailed plan to rebuild Britain after the crisis. One official involved in the work said that the speech would use the ‘three pillars’ of education, technology and infrastructure to set out his vision of a post-Covid Britain – although a senior source cautioned that it was ‘ far too early’ to say what the speech would contain.
The Prime Minister is also battling to contain a series of territorial battles in his Cabinet over the response to the crisis, with Michael Gove at the centre of most of them. Mr Gove, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, has been engaged in a long-running turf war with Health Secretary Matt Hancock over issues such as the supply of medical equipment and protective kit.
Mr Hancock, in turn, has become increasingly fractious with colleagues from the Prime Minister downwards. As The Mail on Sunday revealed last week, when Mr Johnson challenged him over progress towards the target of 100,000 Covid tests a day he shot back: ‘That’s not fair – give me a break’.
Sources say that Mr Gove has also argued privately that he, not Mr Hancock, should have oversight of plans to roll out the testing of anybody who enters the country.
The plans are an attempt to obviate the need to impose the controversial plan for all travellers, including British citizens, to be put into quarantine for 14 days after returning – something which is understood to have been resisted by Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, but backed by Mr Gove.
This newspaper has also learned that Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Mr Gove led a combined effort last Sunday evening to relax lockdown measures further. They were arguing late into the night for the PM to include the provision for friends and family members to meet in ‘bubbles’ – but they were overruled by Mr Johnson and Mr Hancock.
A Government source said: ‘Bubbles were in and out at different points of the weekend hence why it was so unclear after Sunday.’ It’s understood that there is major concern in the Cabinet that if the lockdown continues, more and more Britons will become paralysed by what they call ‘FOGO’ – fear of going out – making it even hard to get people back to work.
Mr Johnson is also facing pressure from backbenchers to allow people to visit their closest family and loved ones. At a virtual meeting of the 1922 Committee on Friday, one MP told the PM that he had ‘not hugged his girlfriend in seven weeks’ and asked when he would be able to. The PM replied ‘soon’.
As part of the gradual relaxation, it is also understood that the Covid19 taskforces in each Government department are being gradually wound-up over the coming weeks.
Last night, Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran said of Mr Johnson’s lockdown exit plan: ‘We don’t just need this limited plan for renewal, we need to re-make a fairer and more liberal Britain.’
People may become paralysed by ‘FOGO’ – fear of going out