As Tory MPs vent over the government’s new three-tier coronavirus system, Boris Johnson appeared this evening before his party for an impromptu meeting of the 1922 committee.
Ahead of votes on the measures, the Prime Minister used Zoom to address MPs dialling in from their offices. With many Conservative MPs grumpy over the latest restriction guidelines, Johnson’s charm offensive got off to a bad start when he was over 15 minutes late. As MPs waited, they wrote complaints in the Zoom chat function – one attendee asked if this was what a circuit breaker looked like. Michael Fabricant’s offer to sing Rule Britannia once again (he began a rendition on a similar call) went unheeded.
When Johnson did make it into the room, he used his opening address to paint his government’s strategy as the ‘balanced approach’. He argued that it was the reasonable middle ground between Labour calls for a national lockdown and letting the virus rip.
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