The curious timing of Boris Johnson’s Covid announcement

You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist who mutters regularly about ‘sheeple’ to find the timing of Boris Johnson’s latest Covid update rather suspicious. This afternoon, he followed his dramatic Prime Minister’s Questions session with an announcement about the end of restrictions which had been introduced to slow the spread of the Omicron variant. They include an end to a number of measures, including compulsory mask-wearing in public places and guidance to work from home. The short-lived but controversial vaccine certification scheme has also been shelved.

The PM told the Chamber that the government had moved fast to implement the Plan B measures as soon as information about Omicron became available. He paid particular attention to the way the government had ‘delivered the fastest booster programme in Europe, reaching half our population before any European country’.