Boris Johnson doesn’t have as angry a Conservative party to deal with as he might have expected after announcing his third national lockdown. The Covid Recovery Group of MPs has largely moved on from opposing further restrictions to putting pressure on the government over its vaccine timetable, meaning any revolt on tonight’s vote will be much smaller than the 55 who rebelled against the tiered system in December. But that’s not to say that the Prime Minister can afford to be careless with the way he communicates with MPs, and his statement in the Commons today showed that.
He opened by telling MPs that there was a ‘fundamental difference between the regulations before the House today and the position we have faced at any previous stage: because now we have the vaccines that are the means of our escape’.
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