The next few weeks in politics will be dominated by the 19 July reopening, and whether hospitals can cope with the coming increase in the number of patients. But, as I say in the magazine this week, if the lifting of Covid restrictions is successful, then attention will turn to the various backlogs that have built up during the pandemic, most notably in education, the NHS and the justice system.
In Whitehall, it is believed that one in four households will have someone on the waiting list by the autumn
These backlogs will cause all sorts of political problems for the government. Those affected by them will want them cleared with urgency. But there are both capacity and financial constraints to how fast they can be dealt with. One cabinet minister predicts that the public will become so irritated by the government’s failure to sort out these backlogs that it will lead to a Labour revival in the polls and the Tories will fall a couple of points behind.
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