Last night 12 Tory MPs and five DUP-ers broke ranks and voted against the ‘Rule of Six’, after repeated challenges to the government to prove the evidence that said the limit – and inclusion of children within the six – affected the spread of Coronavirus. The MPs in full were:
If the government feels it can live with such a small rebellion, they wont have long to wait for another. New intake MP Matt Vickers rose to unlikely prominence yesterday as an opposer of the 10 pm pub curfew, telling the government to rethink its approach and later telling Julia Hartley-Brewer the policy “flies in the face” of the Eat Out to Help Out success. He’s clearly a fan of the Brewers…
The Tory rebellions come as it is reported that three city council leaders – Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle – write to the PM insisting they are not subjected to “further economic lockdowns” as well as demanding an end to the “counter-productive” 10 pm curfew and for Westminster to allow local areas to decide their own anti-COVID strategies. The key question is how Captain Hindsight Starmer respond sympathetically to these demands from his own senior regional leaders…
