Labour’s unlocking problem

Labour is unhappy with the government’s plan for unlocking, with leader Sir Keir Starmer calling it ‘reckless’. In the Commons this afternoon, shadow health secretary Jon Ashworth and then shadow education secretary Kate Green complained about the statements from their ministerial counterparts.

Ashworth treated fellow MPs to the slightly bizarre spectacle of him waving a paper Sajid Javid had written on pandemics while at Harvard, which seemed an incongruous political stunt. All the more discordant is the party’s stance on unlocking, which seems to be to complain about it happening while offering a plan that isn’t vastly different. It is urging the government to keep mandatory mask rules to stop infections rising still further, is demanding better sick pay, and is fretting about the possible incidence of long Covid. But beyond that, Labour isn’t asking for restrictions to be reintroduced or the roadmap to be slowed any further. It isn’t clear how much this would really reduce infections by.