The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Europe’s lockdowns ease, England stays alert and Broadway stays shut

issue 16 May 2020

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The government changed its slogan from ‘Stay home, protect the NHS, save lives’ to ‘Stay alert, control the virus, save lives’. Authorities in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland refused to adopt it. The day after a 13-minute televised speech to the nation by Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, the government published a 50-page Recovery Strategy. A 14-day quarantine would bind anyone entering the country (with exceptions, such as people from France). Everyone should continue to work from home if possible, but workplaces ‘should be open’, apart from those required to be closed. People returning to workplaces were to walk, cycle, drive or use electric scooters, because the capacity of public transport would be reduced by about 90 per cent by distancing measures. Pavements would be widened.

People could go fishing or play singles tennis with strangers, but not doubles.

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