hen Matt Hancock, the health and social care secretary, came to the Commons to give the bad news about the upsurge in Covid infections, his shadow counterpart asked his usual sharp questions in his usual measured fashion.
“As things stand, we are heading into the Christmas easing with diminishing headroom. The buffer zone these tiers were supposed to provide is getting much thinner,” said Jon Ashworth.
“So what is his plan to keep people safe through Christmas and avoid huge pressures on the NHS in January? What is his plan to support an exhausted, underfunded, understaffed NHS through January to deliver the care patients will need? And is he confident that our NHS won’t be so overwhelmed in January that it impacts the vaccination programme?”
