| UPDATED: 15:16, Thu, Jan 7, 2021
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Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced all primary and secondary schools would close from January 5 on Monday, as he delivered the news of a third national lockdown. Schools have moved to remote learning for all students, with the timeline on the return to the classroom having been kept very vague by the Government. On the announcement of closing schools, Mr Johnson said: “I want to stress that the problem is not that schools are unsafe to children. The problem is that schools may no
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A minister has raised concerns over inconsistent coronavirus restrictions in her own constituency.
The Gosport parliamentary constituency, in Hampshire, is split between the tier two status and the most stringent tier four.
Conservative MP and Culture Minister Caroline Dinenage said it would be hard for police to enforce the tiers.
She said she was querying the decision with Health Secretary Matt Hancock and Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove.
Ms Dinenage said: This latest tier decision is terrible news for local businesses and devastating for those who were looking forward to spending a few days over Christmas with loved ones after a hellish year.
The grim countenances of Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance told the story before they even started talking – Christmas was off. As Boris Johnson sat in the Cabinet Room at 5pm on Friday, Whitty and Vallance appeared on the Zoom monitors and started reeling off increasingly alarming data about the new mutant strain of the coronavirus.
In what one participant described as ‘a script from a horror film’, they told the shaken-looking Prime Minister that the variant was 70 per cent more transmissible – and was already responsible for the majority of new infections in the ‘hotspot’ of London and the South East.
People will be left to make their own judgments on whether Christmas celebrations are worth the risk, with warnings to avoid elderly relatives and a recommendation to isolate in the run-up to the festive period.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said it would be “inhuman” to ban Christmas entirely and confirmed the festive bubble policy allowing households to mix would remain in place despite warnings it will lead to more deaths.
But he said people should “think hard” about what they do and a “smaller Christmas is going to be a safer Christmas”.
The original UK-wide plans would have seen three households allowed to form a festive bubble between December 23 and 27.
People will be left to make their own judgments on whether Christmas celebrations are worth the risk, with warnings to avoid elderly relatives and a recommendation to isolate in the run-up to the festive period.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said it would be “inhuman” to ban Christmas entirely and confirmed the festive bubble policy allowing households to mix would remain in place despite warnings it will lead to more deaths.
But he said people should “think hard” about what they do and a “smaller Christmas is going to be a safer Christmas”.
The original UK-wide plans would have seen three households allowed to form a festive bubble between December 23 and 27.