The peace of post-election Britain lasted all of two months before being shattered by that Coronavirus thing the news occasionally mentioned was happening faraway in a region of China. At the very end of February, England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland had recorded their first cases of Covid-19, and within a few short weeks the death projections spooked No. 10 into the locking down the whole country. Westminster became a petri dish of the virus given the long-hours, close-contact socialising and general poor personal hygiene of politicos. Guido’s rolling list of MPs self-isolating became virtually impossible to keep on top of…
Guido was, in fact, the first outlet to publish word of a mass-lockdown, albeit a London-only one, which subsequently dominated that day’s news cycle. While the policy was being discussed at the time, in the end the government wanted to go for a national unity approach. Guido giving voice to London-only lockdown rumours ended up being only nine months premature…
It didn’t take long for Labour to try cashing in on the pandemic, with both Ian Lavery and Rebecca Long-Bailey calling for the party to take advantage of the crisis. One advantage of Covid was the move to Zoom and MP’s being held accountable for private admissions let slip during meetings…
Corbyn also bowed out in March, attending his final PMQs. One of his last acts as leader of Labour was to publish a five-point-plan for Boris on how to keep on top of Coronavirus. Characteristically shambolic, the five-point-plan included 6 points among other faux pas. Perhaps Corbyn’s biggest error of the month was his repeated flouting of Covid restrictions despite being vulnerable. Somehow he never caught it; Boris, however, did…
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