Afternoon summary
- Boris Johnson has admitted the UK public are furious at the continued coronavirus restrictions, but said scientific advice suggested a vaccine or mass testing would be possible by spring. He was speaking in an interview with the BBC’s Andrew Marr. Full summary and analysis here, at 11.52am.
- Priti Patel, the home secretary, has said that she wants to overhaul what she called the “broken” asylum system - but warned Tories that this will “take time”. (See 4.07pm.) Legislation will not be published until next year, she said in a speech which repeated many of the arguments and proposals made (in more detail) by Theresa May when she was home secretary five years ago.
That’s all from me for today. But our coverage continues on our global coronavirus live blog. It’s here.
And this is from Minnie Rahman from the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants on Priti Patel’s speech.
That speech was transparent in its attempts to wind up the left. Nothing of substance in there - she's said it all before (as have countless other home secs). A Bill we can expect next year, with no detail, that they will use as narrative until they bother publishing plans.
— Minnie Rahman (@minnierahman) October 4, 2020
Freedom from Torture, which supports torture survivors in the UK, has criticised Priti Patel’s speech. This is from its chief executive, Sonya Sceats.
Just days ago, the home secretary promised to take a more compassionate, ‘people first’ approach. Yet her plans could see people fleeing torture and persecution returned to face further abuse or worse.
These proposals are an affront to British values and the international protection system that Britain helped to build.
They are also nakedly nativist at a time when the far right is escalating attacks on asylum seekers. Asylum reform is badly needed but it shouldn’t look like this.
Patel warns Tories overhaul of asylum system she plans 'will take time'
We were told in advance that Priti Patel would use her speech to the Conservative conference to to promise an overhaul of the “broken” asylum system and that’s what she did. But alert observers will have noticed that, although she said that she would “stop those who come here illegally making endless legal claims to remain in our country at the expense of the British public”, there was almost nothing in the speech about how in practice she would do this.
“Illegal migration is - and has always been - a complex issue,” she said at one point. And at another she said: “I will be honest with you, this will take time.” It did sound as if her reform plans are perhaps not quite as developed as some of the pre-briefing implied.
Here are the main points.
- Patel described the asylum system as “fundamentally broken”. She said:
Right now, the most vulnerable are stuck in this broken system, with over forty thousand other people.
Almost half of these claims take a year or more to reach a decision.
Costing UK taxpayers over one billion pounds each year.
The highest amount in almost two decades.
And because of our broken system, the way people arrive in our country makes no difference to how their claim is treated.
Calling for the system to be firmer and fairer, Patel gave three examples of how the system was flawed. One involved a young person arriving in the UK legally to work, but then having to wait 17 months when they applied for a visa because they could not go home. That was not fair on them, she said.
Another involved someone coming to the UK on a visa, committing a serious crime, and then filing “repeated legal challenges to stop their deportation, followed by numerous meritless asylum claims so that they could stay in our country”. That was not firm, she said.
And she complained about people arriving illegally in the UK having travelled through safe EU countries like France, “shopping around for where they claim asylum” and “lining the pockets of despicable international criminal gangs”
- She said she would “stop those who come here illegally making endless legal claims to remain in our country at the expense of the British public.”
- She said she would “expedite the removal of those who have no legitimate claim for protection”.
- But she warned that this will take time. She said:
After decades of inaction by successive governments we will address the moral, legal and practical problems with the asylum system ...
And I will bring forward legislation to deliver on that commitment next year.
I will take every necessary step to fix this broken system.
Amounting to the biggest overhaul of our asylum system in decades.
But I will be honest with you, this will take time.
- She said that in the meantime she would “make more immediate returns of those who come here illegally and break our rules, every single week” and “continue to examine all practical measures to effectively deter illegal migration”.
In his Q&A at the online Conservative conference (see 3.27pm) Matt Hancock, the health secretary, also said he wanted to see a greater sense of “shared responsibility” between individuals and the NHS for preventing people getting sick. He said:
I think for too long the NHS has [been] picking up the pieces when things go wrong and instead we need more of a sense of shared responsibility - individual people, everybody, responsible for their own health as well as the NHS taking responsibility to keep people healthy in the first place.
Looking to firmly establish Tory tanks on Labour’s lawn Hancock added: “The Conservative party is, without, the party of the NHS.” He went on:
We protected the NHS during its hour of most need during the peak of the coronavirus and we are going to deliver on those key commitments - 50,000 more nurses and 40 new hospitals - but we need to protect the NHS in the long term as well.
As well as providing historic challenges the pandemic had proved that positive change could happen very quickly, said Hancock, who added that while people should be able to get a face-to-face appointment with a doctor if they wanted to, video consultations were “more convenient and easier” for many people.
About 50% of visits to the GP and 50% of outpatients visits were done by telemedicine, up from under 10% before the crisis, he said. “It’s good for patients, it’s good for doctors.”
Asked how he would encourage more people to enter nursing, he said a “massive” programme was underway.
We have to make the NHS a more fulfilling place to work, we have to make sure it is at all level open to new ideas so that people who want to improve it get the encouragement to do that, and we are going to hire more nurses and keep on doing that until we have what we need in the NHS.
In a Q&A at the Conservative online conference earlier, Matt Hancock, the health secretary, said that the army would be involved in distributing a coronavirus vaccine when it became available. Describing a vaccine as the “great hope”, Hancock said:
The prime minister said this morning there will be some bumpy months ahead but we are working as hard as we can to get a vaccine as fast as is safely possible.
The plans are in train. A combination of the NHS and the armed forces are involved in the logistics of making this happen, making the rollout happen.
Hancock also said the NHS Covid-19 app has now been downloaded 15m times. “It’s gone off the shelf like hotcakes, like digital hotcakes,” he said.
Updated
And in Northern Ireland 462 new coronavirus cases have been recorded, and one further death, according to the latest update from the Department of Health in the region.
Public Health Wales has recorded 432 more coronavirus cases, but no further deaths. The details are here.
Priti Patel, the home secretary, is delivering her speech to the Conservative online conference now.
I will post a summary when I’ve read the text.
Scotland's Covid hospital cases have doubled in past week, latest figures show
The Scottish government has recorded 758 new coronavirus cases, but no further deaths. Of all people being tested, 12.1% were positive.
The figures for positive cases are almost exactly the same as they were yesterday (764 and 12.1%).
The latest update also says there are 210 people in hospital in Scotland with recently confirmed Covid and 22 people in intensive care.
As these figures show, these numbers have more or less doubled in a week. Last Sunday there were 105 people in hospital, and 12 people in intensive care.
Burnham joins Starmer in calling for new approach to local Covid restrictions
In his interview with Andrew Marr, Boris Johnson claimed that his critics did not have any better ideas for handling the coronavirus crisis. (See 11.52am.)
That might have been broadly true at one point, because in his early months as Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer quite deliberately did not try to propose an alternative Covid strategy. He argued that that would be confusing for the public.
But in an interview in today’s Observer Starmer has set out a five-point plan for the government to adopt. It would involve:
• following the German government by publishing criteria it uses to inform people when local restrictions are introduced and lifted
• improving public-health messaging by expanding the NHS Covid-19 app so people can type in their postcode and get information about the restrictions in their area
• fixing the test and trace system by investing in NHS and university labs to expand testing, and putting local public-health teams in charge of contact-tracing in their areas
• ensuring routine regular testing for high-risk workplaces and high-transmission areas with results within 24 hours to improve infection control, including for NHS staff and carers
• outlining a programme to ensure the manufacturing and distribution of any vaccine that is approved
Andy Burnham, the Labour mayor for Greater Manchester, has also come up with a five-point alternative strategy. In a new release this afternoon he says he wants the government to adopt a simplified three-tier system for Covid restriction. This would only only three sets of restrictions being in place, and every area placed in one of the three tiers, instead of rules varying all over England. The government has not denied reports it is considering this.
Burnham says, alongside a three-tier system, five other changes should be in place. The first two were also on Starmer’s list but other are different. Burnham is calling for:
1) Clear thresholds for entry/exit from the different tiers
2) The ability for local areas in tiers 2 and 3 to request local control of the test and trace system, with resources transferring from the national system
3) Agreed levels of extra financial support for councils in tiers two and three
4) A package of support for local businesses affected by local restrictions
5) A local furlough scheme where businesses are required to close
Burnham says the government could lose the support of the public in the north unless it changes its lockdown policies. He says:
Without urgent change, the north of England will be thrown into one of the most difficult winters we have ever experienced, with the risk of significant harm to health and our economy. It’s that serious.
We are heading into the winter months with a test and trace system which is still not working and the risk of redundancies rising sharply as the furlough scheme comes to an end. Without extra support for individuals, business and councils, it could be a winter of dangerous discontent.
I remain ready to work with the government to build public support for its approach to local lockdowns, but that requires meaningful consultation and proper support for the areas affected. That is not happening at the moment.
We have now reached a point where there is a real risk of the government losing the public in the north because of the perceived unfairness of its local lockdown policies. We can’t let that happen. There is still time to put in place better measures to protect communities across the north this winter but time is running out.
NHS England has recorded a further 28 coronavirus hospital deaths. It says the people who died were aged between 69 and 94 and all had underlying health conditions. The detail are here.
Hoping to banish its image as the party of the “male, pale and stale”, the Conservative party held a fringe event on diversity in parliament - with the requisite added tagline: “Now is the time to level up”.
It gathered speakers Caroline Nokes (chair of the Commons women and equalities committee), Sarah Sands (former Today Programme editor and chair of Bright Blue), Helen Pankhurst (founder of the Centenary Action Group which campaigns for better representation in parliament), Kanwal Gill (chair of the Conservatives Diversity Project) and Anita Boateng (a former special advisor) - who discussed the barriers minority groups - and half of the population - face when trying to enter politics. [Your helpful reminder: women make up only one third of the House of Commons, just 63 (of 650) MPs are BAME and only five have a self-declared disability.]
Good old fashioned sexism remains a big problem, said Nokes - who is one of the few Conservatives willing to talk openly about these issues. She (not for the first time) spoke of her own experience: “I had colleagues in 2016 telling me I only got the job because of my tits.”
Speaking about the abuse she has received on social media in particular in the past, she added that she had developed “the skin of a Rhino”, adding that the best step she had taken for her own sanity was switching off social media notifications from her phone
Whenever I did something in the media, the first comments were saying that I’m fat and stupid. I don’t care anymore.
Panelists were asked the best way of tackling the persistent lack of diversity in their own party ; shouldn’t it consider all-women shortlists? [Another reminder: 24% of Conservative MPs are women; compared to 51% of Labour MPs (which put all-women shortlists in 1993)].
“Not keen” was the overall consensus, although Kanwal Gill said direct action did need to be taken or it was “going to take another generation” for parliament to attain gender parity.
Helen Pankhurst, the convener of the women’s rights coalition Centenary Action Group, and great-granddaughter of Emmeline Pankhurst, urged all the panelists to push the government to collect and publish diversity data on candidates.
This may sound dull - but it’s actually really important. And, it’s in the Equality Act (section 106, for those interested) - it’s just never been enacted. Pankhurst said: “It is the Right in power now that can change things.”
Nokes backed that call to enact Section 106, saying: “We must make sure we have a new generation of women able to stand up and wanting to stand up”
The Centenary Action Group is launching its “Data Drives Diversity” report tomorrow, on this very issue.
Today is the 10th anniversary of the Equality Act 2010.
— Centenary Action Group (@CentenaryAction) October 1, 2020
10yrs on and the govt are still yet to enact Section 106 of the Equality Act, which would help make politics more representative.
Women make up only 1/3 of MPs, just 63 MPs are BAME & only 5 have a disability. #Enact106 pic.twitter.com/GGvRShiRzh
Nick Thomas-Symond, the shadow home secretary, says that it is “shameless” for Priti Patel to be talking about the “broken” asylum system, as she will in her speech this afternoon. (See 8.47am.) In a statement he says:
The British people will see through the home secretary’s shameless comments about a ‘broken system’, when the system has been overseen by the Tories for a decade.
This is yet more evidence of how lacking in compassion and competence the Tories are.
In an interview on Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday earlier Prof Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at Edinburgh University and an adviser on coronavirus to the Scottish government, said that lockdown fatigue was likely to be an increasing problem. She explained:
I think the large majority of people are still following the rules but of course fatigue is setting in … I think that’s where local lockdowns have a role to play if there is actually a strategy behind them, so they were used for example in Australia or in Vietnam or in New Zealand for just one or two weeks or a few weeks, to crush the curve. Basically, to get rid of the virus and that was the aim they were heading towards. You could tell people it is going to be a few weeks … and then you get your normal life back.
So, I think the longer this stretches on, the worse it is actually going to be.
She also said that it was a mistake to think lockdowns were the only way to suppress the virus. Test and trace, border controls, and voluntary compliance with social distancing advice could be just as important, she suggested.
But she said the government’s admission yesterday that thousands of positive cases had been left out of the daily figures suggested the system was not working. “A lot of these results from yesterday were backdated and that means your tracing is not going to work rapidly enough because for the test, trace, isolate system to work, test results have to be returned within 24 hours,” she said.
The Mail on Sunday has also published 10 pages from the new biography of Boris Johnson by Tom Bower, the veteran investigative journalist. The extracts focus on Johnson’s upbringing and his private life, and the paper splashes on the revelation that his father, Stanley, once hit Johnson’s mother and broke her nose. It was a one-off incident which Stanley deeply regrets, according to Bower’s account.
Bower has published many unauthorised biographies and generally they have been seen as thoroughly-researched hatchet jobs. But, according to the Mail on Sunday, this book - Boris Johnson The Gambler - “invites sympathy for the prime minister by painting a portrait of a young boy who turned into a self-contained loner as he battled despair over his parents’ divorce and his feral childhood.” The Mail on Sunday story goes on:
Boris, by this account, grew up unable to forge close relationships with men so sought out women as his soulmates instead, which explains his notoriously prolific love life, in which he recklessly poured out his heart to lovers in poems and letters, even threatening suicide to deter women from abandoning him.
According to the Sunday Telegraph (which really ought to know), Charles Moore, a former editor of both the Sunday and the Daily Telegraph, and a current Telegraph columnist, has decided not to apply to be the next chairman of the BBC - despite being reportedly Boris Johnson’s favourite candidate.
This will no doubt be a disappointment to Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, who has used an interview with the Mail on Sunday today to described Moore as an ideal candidate.
‘The BBC is an amazing institution and Charles is someone who would bring a properly Reithian approach to it. He would want to make the BBC succeed,” Gove said.
And here are two of my colleagues on Boris Johnson’s new advice to people to “behave fearlessly but with common sense”. (See 11.52am.)
From John Crace, the sketchwriter
‘Fearlessly with common sense’. New Boris bollocks. I’m going for ‘risk averse with recklessness’ instead
— John Crace (@JohnJCrace) October 4, 2020
From Patrick Wintour, the former political editor
In his Marr interview, Boris Johnson preaches the need to behave with "fearlessness and common sense". Put that in the drawer along with all the other focus grouped messages that leaves the British public havering on the threshold of their front door.
— Patrick Wintour (@patrickwintour) October 4, 2020
These are from the BBC’s Reality Check team on one of the lines in the PM’s interview with Andrew Marr.
Boris Johnson was asked on #MarrShow what the scientific evidence was for 10pm pub closing
— BBC Reality Check (@BBCRealityCheck) October 4, 2020
He said: “one of the things that has been put to us is that by curtailing the hours you can reduce the transmission"
We haven't been able to find any specific scientific advice about this.
The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) – which reports to the government – has highlighted the general risk of venues serving alcohol.
— BBC Reality Check (@BBCRealityCheck) October 4, 2020
We asked @DHSCgovuk for the evidence behind the 10pm cut-off in England, but it hasn't provided it.https://t.co/ajkoyE6RxS
Liz Truss, the international trade secretary, has pledged not to do any deal that would allow chlorinated chicken or hormone-fed beef onto the supermarket shelves.
Speaking at an event at the online Conservative conference, she said this would be a question for parliament, not the Department for International Trade. She said:
Some of the campaigns that are going on at the moment seem to be campaigning against things that already illegal, and it’s already illegal to sell chlorinated chicken in this country or hormone injected beef - that’s already against the law. And we also have strong domestic protections.
So any trade deal we had that wanted to change that domestic legislation, again, that would have to go through parliament.
Boris Johnson's interview with Andrew Marr - Summary and analysis
Andrew Marr covered quite a lot of ground in his interview with Boris Johnson this morning and, although Johnson did not have any proper capital-n News to announce, it was interesting seeing him trying to justify his handling of the Covid crisis (not always very easily) and trying to recalibrate his overall message to his party and to the electorate at large (again, not always convincingly), in the light of evidence that both groups think he is under-performing. (See 8.25am.)
Here are the main points.
- Johnson warned Britain not to expect any early resolution of the coronavirus crisis. He signalled that he expects some local lockdown measures to extend into 2021. With a feint echo of Jim Callaghan warning about the state of the economy in 1970s (“I tell you, in all candour”) Johnson said: “I’ve got to tell you in all candour, it’s going to continue to be bumpy through to Christmas.” (See 10.22am.) He also said it would be “a very tough winter”. He said:
If you ask me ‘do I think things can be significantly different by Christmas?’ Yes I do, and we’re working flat-out to achieve that. But be in no doubt that it is still very possible that there are bumpy, bumpy months ahead. This could be a very tough winter for all of us - we’ve got to face that fact.
- He claimed it was too early to say that local lockdown measures were not working. When Marr put it to him that the fact that infections in Oldham have almost doubled in the last six weeks since a tough lockdown was introduced meant it was not working, Johnson replied: “I’m afraid it’s simply too early to say.” He also struggled to give a compelling reason for why infection rates were going up in areas under local lockdown. There were many factors, he said, and the reopening of schools “put a lot more load on the risk factor”.
- He played down the prospect of a vaccine being available by the end of the year. Asked about this, he said it was “possible”. But he went on:
But I don’t want to get people’s hopes up on the vaccine unnecessarily because I think there is a chance but it is not certain.
- He said he wanted people to “behave fearlessly but with common sense”. Explaining his overall strategy, he said:
On the one hand we have the imperative to save life, it is a moral imperative to save life if we possibly can. On the other hand we have to keep our economy moving and our society going. That is the balance that we are trying to strike and that’s why we have got the package of measures now that are in force both nationally and locally.
What we want people to do is behave fearlessly but with common sense, to follow the guidance - whether national or local - get the virus down but allow us as a country to continue with our priorities.
The line about behaving “fearlessly but with common sense” seemed chosen deliberately to dispel claims that there is a difference between the policy he is advocating and the approach taken by Rishi Sunak, his chancellor. When Sunak announced his winter economy plan he was widely praised by Tory MPs for ending his speech with the words: “We must learn to live with [coronavirus] and live without fear.” They liked it because they saw this approach as preferable to what they considered the over-cautious approach exemplified by Johnson’s announcement two days earlier about pubs being forced to close at 10pm. Johnson was today trying to synthesise the two positions.
But he was not wholly convincing. Partly that’s because Sunak was not just making a point about fear. Politicians have been unsure whether to argue that life will eventually return back to normal, or whether we must learn to live with Covid, and Sunak was coming out for the second proposition. Johnson still seems to be hoping life will eventually return to normal. (See below).
The other problem is that what Johnson said did not really make sense, as Labour’s Chris Byrant argues.
What on earth does this mean?
— Chris Bryant (@RhonddaBryant) October 4, 2020
Boris Johnson: "We want people to behave fearlessly but with common sense".
This kind of incomprehensible two-faced messaging is part of why we’re in such a mess. He wants to sound bullish but just confuses everyone.
The writer and political commentator Robert Harris has made the same point in a more literary way.
“Fearless common sense”?
— Robert Harris (@Robert___Harris) October 4, 2020
We are led by oxymorons
- Johnson said that it would be wrong for him to handle the coronavirus crisis with in his normal boosterish style. When Marr put it to him that a lot of people thought he was not up to the task he faced, Johnson replied:
The reality is that this is a government that is facing an unprecedented crisis. I think that if people wanted me to approach it with the sort of buoyancy and elan and all the other qualities that I normally bring, I think people would think that that was totally inappropriate. And it is, because we face a pandemic in which already tens of thousands of people have died.
This sounded like a tacit admission that the tone Johnson adopted at the start of the crisis, when he was talking about “squashing the sombrero” and boasting about shaking hands with people in a hospital, might not have been appropriate. But it also partly missed the point of Marr’s question. The concerns about Johnson that Marr referred to in his question are as much about competence as they are about tone.
- Johnson said that his critics did not have any better ideas for handling the crisis. He said:
We haven’t actually had [from people attacking government policy] any alternative suggestions. No one has come up with any better proposals that I’m aware of.
- He rejected the suggestion that Britain might face a series of rolling coronavirus restrictions going on for possibly years. When Marr asked about this being a possibility, Johnson said he did not think that would happen. He explained:
If you talk to the scientists they’re all virtually unanimous that by the spring things will be radically different and we’ll be in a different world because that is the normal cycle of a pandemic like this. But I also think, if you look at where we are, so many things are better ..
We will find all sorts of ways, I’m absolutely sure, particularly through mass testing programmes, of changing the way that we tackle this virus.
He also said the “scientific equation” would change.
What I hope, and I believe very strongly, is that in the course of the next weeks and months, the scientific equation will change and we will start to see progress, whether it is on vaccines or on testing, that will enable us to take a different approach. But for the moment, that is the balance that people have to adopt, that is the line we have to follow.
- He said claims that he was suffering from long Covid were “drivel” and “balderdash”. Asked if he was still suffering from after-effects from his infection in the spring, he replied:
No, no, not in my case. This is total tittle tattle, it is drivel. It is not tittle tattle, it is balderdash and nonsense. I can tell you I’m fitter than several butchers’ dogs.”
- He said Britain could “more than live with it” if it ended the Brexit transition without a trade deal with the EU. Asked about the prospects of a deal, he replied:.
I hope that they’ll agree to the deal that we’ve set out because it’s a very good deal for the EU. All we’re asking our friends and partners to offer is terms that they’ve already offered to Canada which is you know a long way away from here.
We’re very close to our European friends and partners, we’ve been members of the EU for 45 years, I see no reason why we shouldn’t get those sorts of terms.
I don’t want the Australian-WTO type outcome, particularly, but we can more than live with it.
- He said he was “frustrated” by problems with NHS Test and Trace. Asked about the fact that it is nowhere near the target he set it, for all results to be delivered within 24 hours, he replied:
Yes it’s not perfect but it has made a huge difference to our ability to see where the virus is and where it is spreading, in which groups it is most prevalent and it is helping us a huge amount.
It is not perfect, I’m not going to claim it’s perfect. Am I frustrated with it? Yes, of course I’m frustrated with it. Am I going to blame NHS Test and Trace ... of course I’m not.
- He claimed there was scientific evidence to justify the compulsory 10pm closing time for pubs. Many of his MPs dislike the policy, and ministers have constantly struggle when asked to produce robust scientific evidence to defend it. Asked about that evidence, Johnson said: “One of the things that has been put to us is that by curtailing the hours you can reduce the transmission.”
- He admitted the Eat Out to Help Out scheme may have helped to spread the virus. But he said it was justified by what it did for the economy. He said:
It unquestionably helped to protect many [jobs]. There are two million jobs at least in the hospitality sector.
It was very important to keep those jobs going. Now, if it, insofar as that scheme may have helped to spread the virus, then obviously we need to counteract that.
- He insisted that he was “a freedom-loving Tory” and that imposing restrictions was “the last thing we want to do”. But they were necessary to save lives, he said.
Updated
Labour says Johnson's 'serial incompetence' is holding Britain back
Labour has issued this response to Boris Johnson’s interview. It’s from Alex Norris, a shadow health minister.
Boris Johnson had the chance to map out a serious strategy to improve public confidence in the government’s handling of this crisis.
Instead he waffled and ducked every question.
His serial incompetence is holding Britain back.
Johnson says it will 'continue to be bumpy through to Christmas', and maybe into 2021
Boris Johnson did not deliver an entirely negative forecast in his Andrew Marr interview. He rejected the idea that the UK would be stuck in a series of rolling lockdowns for years to come, and he insisted that by next spring the outlook would be very different. But generally, though, his message to the UK was a sobering one. He said:
I know people are furious, and they are furious with me and furious with the government. But, you know, I’ve got to tell you in all candour, it’s going to continue to be bumpy through to Christmas, it may even be bumpy beyond. But this is the only way to do it.
That seemed a clear hint that he expects some local lockdown measures to continue into 2021.
Johnson says claim he is suffering from long Covid 'drivel' and 'balderdash'
Q: Eight years ago I had a stroke and I suffered serious fatigue when I came back to work. Have you suffered something similar? Have you got long Covid?
Johnson describes that claim as “drivel” and “balderdash”
Q: If you had it, would you tell the British people and stand down.
Johnson says when he got it, he was too fat. This should be teachable moment, he says.
Q: You are probably the only person in the world who understands what President Trump is going through. What would you tell him?
Johnson says he thinks Trump will be fine. He should follow his doctors’ advice.
Q: He should eat fewer cheeseburgers?
Johnson says he is not making a point about Trump, but obesity is a serious problem, he says.
And that’s it. The interview is over.
Reaction, a summary and analysis coming up ...
Q: Was the Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross talking about you when he said people in government were putting the union at risk. (See 8.50am.)
Johnson says he is a big supporter of the union. And Brexit will be good for Scotland.
Johnson says UK can 'more than live with it' if there's no trade deal with EU
Q: Will you get a trade deal with the EU?
Johnson says there is a deal to be done. But the EU needs to understand Britain’s demands.
Q: Is no deal really an option. Mark Rutte, the Dutch PM, says no deal would be a geopolitical disaster?
Good for Mark, says Johnson. He says he wants a deal on terms offered to other countries.
But the UK can “more than live with it” if there is no deal, he says.
Q: You are losing the support of Tory MPs.
Johnson says he is a freedom-loving Tory. But he needs to save lives.
Q: Will a vaccine arrive this year?
Johnson says it is possible, but he does not want to promise that.
Q: Will we be in and out of restrictions for years to come?
No, says Johnson.
He says that by next spring things will be radically different. That is the cycle for a virus, he says.
He says policies like mass testing can make a big difference.
Q: Why has there been a sudden spike in the number of people testing positive?
Johnson says there was a problem with the way the numbers were counted.
He repeats his line about the need for people to behave “fearlessly, but with common sense”.
Q: You keep over-promising. Can you be a bit more realistic?
Johnson says he wants to offer hope. We can get through this, he says.
He says things can be “significantly different” by Christmas. But it is also likely there are bumpy months ahead.
Q: You promised 100% of test results being turned around within 24 hours. Now only 38% are. What’s gone wrong?
Johnson says the system is not perfect.
He says the number of tests, and the demand for tests, has gone up massively since he made that promise.
Am I frustrated with the service? Of course ...
But he won’t criticise the service, he says.
And he repeats the claim it will reach 500,000 tests a day by the end of this month.
Q: The 10pm curfew may be making things worse. Can you produce scientific evidence to defend it?
Johnson says the evidence is that the virus is spread in pubs, and people get more convivial as the evening goes on.
Obviously it makes no sense if people follow the guidance in the pub, but then “hobnob” outside in a way that doesn’t. They should follow the guidelines.
Q: You have accused people of being blasé. But you encouraged people to mix through Eat Out to Help Out.
Johnson says it was important to restart the economy.
The scheme helped to protect jobs. There are 2m jobs in the hospitality sector, he says.
Johnson says he does not think anyone has got any better ideas for how to tackle the crisis.
Johnson signals restrictions may continue beyond Christmas
Johnson says he understands the fatigue people feel.
They are furious with me, they are furious with the government.
But he says he must tell people “in candour” that it may continue to be bumpy until Christmas, and beyond.
- Johnson signals restrictions may continue beyond Christmas.
UPDATE: See 10.22am for the full quote.
Updated
Johnson says it is too early to say local lockdown measures not working
Q: Oldham has had a lockdown for six weeks. But the numbers are not going down. It is not working, is it?
Johnson says it is too early to say.
Q: What about Manchester. After six weeks infections are almost 10 times as high as they were. I don’t know why these measures are not working. Do you?
Johnson says a lot of factors are in play. There are positive signs, he says. Hospital admissions and death rates remain low.
Q: People say you are not up to it.
Johnson says, he he just treated to face this with his normal bonhomie, people would say that was inappropriate.
He says the Conservatives are still committed to their reform agenda.
Johnson urges people to behave 'fearlessly, but with common sense'
Johnson says the government has to strike a balance between saving lives and allowing the economy to recover.
He says he wants people to “behave fearlessly, but with common sense”.
He says he hopes that within the next few months science will help to provide new solutions.
Updated
Boris Johnson's interview with Andrew Marr
Boris Johnson is being interviewed by Andrew Marr now.
Q: What would you say to business people looking ahead to the next six months with terror?
Johnson says they have his deepest sympathy. The government has a package of policies to support them, he says.
Jonathan Ashworth also told Andrew Marr that Labour now wanted the 10pm compulsory closing time policy to be changed. Closing times should be staggered, he said. “We’re asking the government to consider staggering the throwing out times,” he said.
Marr asked why Labour supported the policy in the first place if it was a bad idea. Ashworth said Labour supported local restrictions generally. On 10pm, it wanted to see the evidence, he said.
Councils should get control of contact tracing when local lockdown measures imposed, says Labour's Ashworth
On the Andrew Marr Show Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, has just said that Labour wants councils to be given control of contact tracing in their areas when local lockdown measures are imposed. He said the national service, provided by Serco, was not up to the job, he said.
As mentioned earlier, Priti Patel, the home secretary, has given details of her plan to reform the asylum rules to the Sunday Times. (See 8.47am.) Here are more lines from her interview.
- Patel said the current asylum system was disadvantaging the most vulnerable people. She said:
Our asylum system is effectively allowing international criminality to abuse our system and — shockingly — to elbow the most vulnerable people who need help and support to the side. That is morally indefensible. It is a system that is broken beyond belief.
- She indicated that she wanted asylum seekers entering the UK from France to be returned in most circumstances. In his interview Tim Shipman wrote:
Devising the specifics of what constitutes “illegal” in the legislation will be complicated, since many asylum-seekers are forced to use false papers to escape oppressive regimes. “We will still have to look at every single case,” said the home secretary, but the instruction to courts will be that, unless there are exceptional circumstances, those coming by boat who could have sought asylum elsewhere in Europe will be rejected.
- Patel defended the Home Office’s decision to explore a range of extreme options for processing asylum seekers, including sending them to places like Papua New Guinea. She said.
I’m the type of person that just carries on regardless ... It’s disappointing to see sniping from the sidelines. My only motivation in life is to get stuck in, which I do every single day. I am an activist in government.
That means looking under the bonnet, asking difficult questions, being challenging, questioning previous policy and legislation, so we deliver the right answers for the public.
- She did not deny reports that the Home Office had considered ideas like using wave machines to force dinghies to return to France. Asked about the option, she said: “That’s operational tactics and, quite frankly, I’m not going to start discussing operational tactics,” she said.
Q: Can people have confidence in the government’s coronavirus figures when yesterday it revealed that thousands of positive test results had not been included in the government figures?
Lewis says the government is being transparent. As soon as a problem with the figures was identified, it was made public.
Q: The Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon said the SNP MP Margaret Ferrier should stand down for ignoring the social distancing rules. But Boris Johnson refused to say that. That’s just because he was afraid of being accused of hypocrisy because he did not discipline Dominic Cummings for something similar, isn’t it?
Lewis does not accept that. He says the Cummings case was different. Ferrier herself has admitted she broke the rules, he says.
I don’t think that is a fair assessment at all.
I think they are very different situations - I’ve commented before on the situation with Dominic and actually, within the guidance it wasn’t on the same scale at all as what Margaret has done.
Margaret certainly has [broken the rules]. What she has done by travelling on public transport, knowing she has a positive test, is a whole different level.
Updated
Brandon Lewis, the Northern Ireland secretary, is being interviewed by Sophy Ridge on Sky now.
Q: Do you think that Boris Johnson and President Trump have sent the wrong message by adopting a macho attitude to getting coronavirus. Does this make people take it less seriously?
Lewis does not accept that. He says when Johnson was ill, he said his experience showed how serious it was.
Q: The local lockdowns aren’t working, are they?
Lewis says he does not agree.
Q: But in every area that has had a local lockdown, apart from Leicester, case numbers are higher now than when the lockdown started.
Lewis says following the guidelines does make a difference.
Q: So are you saying that in places like Greater Manchester people aren’t doing that.
Lewis says he thinks most people are following the guidelines.
This is from the politics professor Tim Bale on the Ashcroft polling mentioned earlier. (See 8.25am.)
Don't get too excited @UKLabour fans about the Mail on Sunday poll - not until the second graphic looks an awful lot more like the first. pic.twitter.com/DYIZUyfopH
— Tim Bale (@ProfTimBale) October 4, 2020
And this is from Deborah Mattinson, the pollster who has recently published a book on the views of Red Wall voters (ie, voters in the traditional Labour seats won by the Conservatives at the general election).
I’ve been re-interviewing Red Wall voters from my book this week and this bears out what I heard. Doesn’t mean they’re happy though... https://t.co/7gfePAX4r9
— Deborah Mattinson (@debmattinson) October 4, 2020
Nigel Farage, the Brexit party leader, has also been on Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday. He said that he thought there would be a trade deal with the EU before the end of the year that would not satisfy the Brexiters. He said:
I sense there will be a compromise, I sense there will be a deal before the end of the year and it’s one that will not fully satisfy many Brexiteers.
Asked if that meant he would want to return to the political frontline, Farage said:
Let’s see where we go with this, but if they completely drop the ball on Brexit, if we finish up stuck with a level play, unable to be competitive, then there are more battles to be fought.
On Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader, is defending the hard-edged speech he gave yesterday in which he accused some in government of not being committed to defending the union. In his speech Ross said:
Many, including some who govern our country, want to see a UK government focused on England.
We pretend these are the views of only a small minority, but I hear them far too often.
If you think Scotland’s place in the UK isn’t worth the fight, then you’re in the wrong party.
Ridge asked Ross to reveal who in government he was referring to, but Ross refused to say.
Asylum system 'fundamentally broken', says Patel
The main platform speaker at the online Conservative conference today will be Priti Patel, the home secretary. She will use her speech to claim: “Our asylum system is fundamentally broken.” According to a report by Tim Shipman in the Sunday Times, who has interviewed her, these will be the features of the new policy for processing asylum seekers that she will announce.
- Migrants arriving without authorisation “will face the presumption that they are refused asylum”, the Sunday Times says.
- New legal routes will be created for those who are at genuine risk of harm.
- People applying for asylum will be stopped from making “endless” appeals if they are refused.
- New facilities will be opened to house and process asylum seekers.
- Courts will be told to return asylum seekers to safe countries they passed through on their way to the UK.
- Foreign criminals and asylum seekers whose applications are turned down will be deported if they are not at risk.
Much of this sound very familiar. It is almost five years to the day since the then home secretary, Theresa May, gave a speech to the Tory conference setting out what she described as a “tough new plan for asylum”. My colleague Alan Travis wrote it up at the time here. And there are more details from May’s 2015 speech here.
Voters think Starmer would be better PM than Johnson, poll suggests
Good morning. It is the second day of the Conservative party’s online conference and, as usual on conference Sunday, Boris Johnson is being interviewed by Andrew Marr on the BBC. The Andrew Marr Show starts at 9am and Johnson should be on just after 9.30am.
It is the first Tory conference since Johnson won an 80-seat majority at the general election and, in a normal political cycle, this ought to be a moment of triumphalism. But 2020 has been anything but normal and instead, as Michael Savage reports in the Observer, instead the conference is taking place with Conservatives increasingly concerned about Johnson’s lacklustre performance as prime minister and party leader.
For a start, Johnson is now coming second bottom in the ConservativeHome website’s monthly survey of how party members rate the performance of members of the cabinet. Only Gavin Williamson, the education secretary, is deemed to be doing worse. It’s only a survey, of course, but ConservativeHome party members’ survey as seen as a reliable guide to opinion in the party, because their findings normally match the results of internal party elections quite closely.
As the ConservativeHome editor Paul Goodman explains in his write-up, it is not unprecedented for a Tory PM to get a negative rating in this table - Theresa May did much worse at one point - but nevertheless “it’s a rotten springboard from which to vault into party conference”.
And there is worse news today in the Mail on Sunday, which has published details from an extensive survey, using polling and focus groups, conducted by Lord Ashcroft, the former Conservative deputy party chairman who is now a polling specialist.
Here is an extract from Glen Owen’s write-up.
A total of 37 per cent of voters think that Sir Keir would make the best prime minister, ahead of Mr Johnson on 30 per cent.
And when asked to choose between the parties under their current leaders, 53 per cent opt for Labour, with 47 per cent for the Conservatives.
The research also suggests that support for the Tories in ‘Red Wall’ seats where Labour voters switched to the Conservatives in their thousands to hand an 80-seat majority to Mr Johnson last year is also reasonably soft, with 31 per cent saying they would switch back to Labour, while 69 per cent would stick with the Tories.
No 10 will be unsettled by Lord Ashcroft’s finding that only 27 per cent believe Mr Johnson is doing a good job, while 21 per cent think he would be a good PM ‘under different circumstances’ and 39 per cent think he would not be a good premier whatever the situation.
And here is an extract from Lord Ashcroft’s own account of his findings. His full 23-page report is here (pdf).
While 27 per cent in my poll said he was doing a good job, a further one in five said he could be a good PM under different circumstances but was not the kind of leader we needed at the moment. Some wonder whether he has really recovered from his own encounter with Covid. In my poll, the words most often chosen to describe him were “out of his depth” and “incompetent.”
Plummeting numbers for @BorisJohnson & the Tories in @LordAshcroft poll (although incredibly 27% think he’s doing a good job as PM) pic.twitter.com/80nWHImCay
— Ian Birrell (@ianbirrell) October 3, 2020
As ever, though, with polling, it is important to keep the findings in perspective. The Conservative party has been consistently ahead of Labour in opinion polls all this year. Its average lead has been falling (from 16 points on average in January, to three points on average in September, according to an analysis by the psephologist David Cowling), but only one poll so far has put Labour ahead. Governing parties often fall a long way behind the opposition, and still go on to win.
Here is the agenda for the day.
8.30am: Brandon Lewis, the Northern Ireland secretary, and Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader, are interviewed on Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday.
9am: Boris Johnson is interviewed on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show. Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, is also appearing.
1.30pm: Robert Jenrick, the communities secretary, takes part in a Q&A at the online Conservative conference.
2pm: Matt Hancock, the health secretary, speaks at the conference.
3pm: Priti Patel, the home secretary, speaks at the conference.
4pm: Robert Buckland, the justice secretary, speaks at the conference.
I will be mostly focusing on the Conservative party conference today, although wider UK coronavirus developments will also get covered. Here is our global coronavirus live blog.
I try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.
If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter. I’m on @AndrewSparrow.
Updated
