NO MORE PAIN AND DAMAGE, PRIME MINISTER

As Boris unveils four-week lockdowns for millions, MPs and council leaders plead...

BORIS Johnson was last night warned he will shatter the economy as he prepares to impose four- week local lockdowns on millions this week.

Liverpool is set to become the first city subject to the tough new restrictions to stem rising Covid numbers.

Former Tory minister Esther McVey, the MP for Tatton, pleaded with the Prime Minister: ‘Please let us not lock down further – it is not working. All it is doing is causing more pain and damage, destroying livelihoods and creating untold damage and poverty.’

Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham said: ‘If they continue with this, jobs will be lost, businesses will collapse, the fragile economies of the North will be shattered.’ David

Greenhalgh, the Conservative leader of Bolton council, described the proposed restrictions as ‘oppressive’.

And Tory MP Will Wragg feared the measures would be ‘counterproductive’, with people gathering in homes and spreading the virus. It comes as:

■ Yesterday, 12,872 people in the UK were reported to have tested positive for coronavirus – 2,294 fewer than Saturday’s total – and there were a further 65 deaths;

■ Data shows the chances of surviving coronavirus after falling critically ill have increased significantly since the start of the pandemic;

■ Crowds packed into shopping centres in the North at the weekend as shoppers tried to buy their Christmas presents early in case of further restrictions in December;

■ Shocking figures predicted that almost 3 million people will be unemployed by Christmas;

■ The Mail has learnt that NHS Test and Trace has slashed 2,000 contact tracer roles despite renewed pressure on the system from rising infections.

Mr Johnson will this morning chair a meeting of the Government’s Cobra committee to finalise plans for the new three-tier system of local restrictions, which he will set out in the Commons this afternoon. He will then speak to the nation in a televised Downing Street press conference, where he will be joined by Chancellor Rishi Sunak and chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty.

MPs will vote on the changes tomorrow before they come into force on Wednesday.

Under the new system, every part of England will be given one of three alert levels – medium, high and very high.

Ministers intend to put the Liverpool city region in the top category. Pubs will be closed and 1.5 million residents will be asked not to leave the area unless it is for essential travel such as work.

But Liverpool metro mayor Steve Rotheram last night insisted a final decision had not been made and accused the Government of failing to provide the evidence for such action.

Liverpool city mayor Joe Anderson said if the Government did not offer economic support for people and businesses during the lockdown, they will have to pay instead for people to be on benefits.

The proposed new furlough system for business ordered to shut down will cover only 67 per cent of workers’ wages rather than the 80 per cent originally offered.

Mr Anderson said: ‘We have not agreed anything, we have been told this is what Government intends to do with “no buts”.’

Mr Wragg, who represents Hazel Grove in Greater Manchester, said: ‘Talk of closing pubs, restaurants and cafes is misplaced, given that very limited transmission of Covid seems to take place there. It would be counterproductive to close them, if people were to then meet in each other’s homes, where transmission is much higher.’

A group of five Labour MPs in Manchester wrote to the Prime Minister to argue that infections had been largely confined to the city’s universities.

They said: ‘Beyond the student population, the majority of transmissions are still occurring in household settings… Transmission in hospitality settings, as you know, constitutes a very small proportion of infection rates. We are concerned that closing all regulated premises will not only lead to gatherings being pushed underground, it won’t have a sizeable effect on virus transmission.’

Sir Richard Leese, leader of Manchester City Council, told Times Radio he would ‘absolutely not’ be happy to see a Tier 3 lockdown for the city because it would not tackle the spread of the virus and be ‘absolutely disastrous’ for the local economy.

He said the council’s data showed there was ‘no evidence that closing pubs works’.

A trader who runs a burger van on Bury market yesterday warned that businesses are already suffering because existing restrictions. Asked how she felt about further measures, the woman told the BBC: ‘Just terrible – it is killing us.’

Scientists last night cast doubt on the effectiveness of the restrictions. Professor David Livermore, a microbiologist at the University of East Anglia, said the hospitality trade ‘seems to be a convenient whipping boy’, and there was little evidence it was behind the recent rise in cases.

A Downing Street spokesman said last night: ‘Our primary focus has always been to protect lives and livelihoods while controlling the spread of the virus and these measures will help achieve that aim.

‘This is a critical juncture and it is absolutely vital that everyone follows the clear guidance we have set out to help contain the virus.’

TO try to protect Britain from coronavirus, the Prime Minister will today announce a raft of punishing restrictions enveloping northern england and the Midlands.

In hotspots where the disease is soaring fastest, pubs, bars and gyms will be shut, while it will be illegal, on pain of criminal fines, to meet family and friends.

Yet until now lockdowns have failed to control infections. What will actually change?

So when addressing the nation this evening, Boris Johnson must explain precisely why he believes placing society and the economy back on to the pyre is a price worth paying.

In these pages, experts warn that three million will be jobless by Christmas, with hospitality thrown to the wolves. As one businesswoman in Bury – part of Boris’s new ‘Blue Wall’ – argued: ‘It is killing us.’ Meanwhile, the public finances are obliterated.

On top of that, the relentless focus on Covid is distorting healthcare priorities. Countless women are in danger as breast cancer screening for the over-70s is banned. how many of them will die unnecessarily?

But this appalling damage is being inflicted in the name of containing a virus that does not kill 99.9 per cent of its victims.

Wouldn’t it be a superior strategy to shield the vulnerable and keep the country ticking along rather than foisting these insanities upon us all? Surely that more nuanced approach would be in the best interests of Britain.