Will a second wave thwart Boris's bid to reopen schools?

As ministers work on plans to return all pupils in England to the classroom next month, the government is once again being criticised from all sides. Union leaders are questioning whether the current plan carried significant safety risks, while England’s children’s commissioner has made an intervention today warning that schools should be the last places to shut in future lockdowns – after pubs.

This comes back to a Whitehall phrase I reported last week, the ‘schools or pubs dilemma’. Ministers have started to consider their arguments in the event that some things have to close in order for others to open as a result of the rate of infection being too high in No. 10’s view. Figures in government insist this is a false choice – but should push come to shove, the return of schools is something that is not viewed as optional in No. 10. Should it to fail to go ahead, there’s an awareness that it won’t just be a policy fail, it will be indicative of a much wider failure in the government’s approach to tackling coronavirus.