Health Select Committee Chairman Jeremy Hunt has today called for immediate measures to close borders, schools, and ban all household mixing. Hunt follows Number 10 Policy Board chair Neil O’Brien saying last night that “we need to do something big to slow the explosive growth and stop hospitals being further overwhelmed”.

The specifics in Hunt’s statement make a marked contrast to Sir Keir’s vague call for a third ‘lockdown’ yesterday, which later turned out to be one “like November, not March”. When the government kept borders and schools wide open…

Yesterday evening under pressure from journalists asking Starmer’s team what would actually be the difference between Sir Keir’s ‘lockdown’ demand and the Lockdown-inspired Tier 4 restrictions most of the country is under already. The response from his press people was that zoos, which are open under Tier 4, would close. Who knew solving Covid was so simple?