Rare scenes of civil liberty unity on Question Time last night as every panellist came out against domestic covid passports, and a forced requirement by employees for workers to have the vaccine; with the far-left Nadia Whittome, hardline-centrist Layla Moran and CRG chair Mark Harper all opposing the floated measure for different reasons:

• Layla Moran: “Out of the question”, citing people being able to take time off to get the vaccine; “I am a liberal and my view is you can trust individuals to do the right thing, and in this case actually what you’re asking them to do is divulge medical data as well. I don’t think that’s right”
• Mark Harper: “It’s particularly ironic that I’ve heard it being argued as a way to get the economy re-opened, well the reality is younger people will be the last people to be vaccinated, they’re the ones that have been damaged most by the economic dislocation from Covid, we’d be in a ridiculous position where  we’d be re-opening the economy, and younger people would be the people shut out as older people were able to go back out again”
• Nadia Whittome: “What the government has actually said on ‘no jab, no job’ is that’s up to employers – now this is absolutely wrong… they need to intervene to legislate against this, we cannot have a situation where employers are able to have a blank cheque to exploit workers in this way”

The founder and CEO of the Oakman Inns chain, also on the panel, said he would be “deeply uncomfortable” with enforcing the principle of ‘no jab, no job’ for his employees. It seems Covid has met a rival pandemic that’s spreading even more rapidly: common sense…