6 2GM Thursday October 15 2020 | the times
News
Quentin Letts
Fire up the Montego...
Starmer’s taking a stand
N
o more were he and the
prime minister locked
like mating foxes. Sir
Keir Starmer had made a
move. By golly, a gambit!
At last he had taken his fingers offthe chess piece and was now daddy
to a risk. Gulp.
These things do not come easily
to the QC. Sir Keir is the sort who,
before booking Butlin’s, will
examine the small print at the back
of the brochure. Starmer family
holidays must also have to wait until
he has checked the tyre pressures
and fluid levels on the Montego
estate and double reef-knotted all
roof-rack moorings. Braces and
belts: that’s the drill. But now hehad gone and demanded a national
lockdown.
Sitting before PMQs he fingered
his notes and crimped his sticky
fringe. An accountant in a casino.
Opposite, on the government bench,
grunted that snorting porker,
bristles askew from another
rummage in the acorns. Mind you,
Boris had for once polished his
shoes. Or should one say that his
shoes had been polished? Perhaps
Oliver Dowden did them for him.
In terms of dramatic clarity, Sir
Keir’s bold leap was a tremendous
success. But is canny ambiguity not
one of the arts of opposition? For
months he and Mr Johnson held
barely distinguishable positions.
Any criticisms Sir Keir made — and
you needed a law degree to follow
them — tended to have a querulous
flavour, E L Wisty complaining to a
manufacturer of socks. Now we had
a proper difference between the twomen. Sir Keir wanted a second
national shutdown. Mr Johnson
preferred to keep shops and schools
and boozers open in less-infected
areas.
“I don’t think that approach goes
far enough and neither does Sage,”
quavered Sir Keir as he and Mr
Johnson settled into their
Wednesday grapple. Sage was all-
knowing. Verily, verily, Sage was the
supreme court of Covid. Sir Keir,
who has a reverence for unelected
authority, spoke as learned counsel
for the Whittys and Fergusons of
this world. The PM, blowing back in
reply, said Starmer was proposing to
shut all pubs and bars, “yank kids
out of school in a peremptory way”
and knacker businesses and jobs.
The scientists were not the be-all
and end-all, bawled Boris.
There was an energy and
quickness to these exchanges that
has long been lacking. It felt like apossible break-of-serve moment. If
Mr Johnson can be forced into
national shutdown, Sir Keir will
crow that he is the real premier. If
national lockdown is averted and
deaths drop next month, Sir Keir’s
opponents will pelt him with hot
faggots. The gamble is now in the
wager book.
Sir Keir was, in his tight-lipped
way, pretty rude to Johnson, saying
he had been “an opportunist all his
life”. This won a few chuckles.
Blame your rival for your own
shortcoming: oldest trick in politics.
Mr Johnson called him an
opportunist right back. “I have
genuinely concluded it is in the
national interest,” said Sir Keir. He
repeated that phrase: “Genuinely
concluded.” Beside him sat Nick
Brown, the ancient and burly and
usually inscrutable Labour chief
whip. Brown’s pillbox-slit eyes
narrowed a little on that secondPolitical Sketch
Border restrictions are to be introduced
as pressures over coronavirus strain the
Union and support for Scottish
independence rises.
The Welsh government announced
its intention to implement border rules
that will prevent Britons from travel-
ling into Wales from areas with high
infection rates.
Mark Drakeford, the first minister,
unveiled the plan in response to Boris
Johnson’s refusal to meet his demand to
make travel guidance in English hot-
spots mandatory instead of advisory.
The Labour politician insisted that
the border measures, which will come
into force tomorrow, would stop outsid-
ers “bringing the virus with them” as he
declared that he was determined to
“keep Wales safe”. At present local re-
strictions block people moving beyond
their country boundary without a
reasonable excuse.
Mr Drakeford said that evidence
from public health professionals sug-
gested the virus is “moving from east to
west across the UK” and “is concentrat-
ing in urban areas and then spreading
to more sparsely populated areas as a
result of people travelling”.
The travel ban would “most likely”
affect people from tier two and tier
three areas in England, except for those
making essential trips such as for work.
He said it was designed to target
holidaymakers travelling to rural areas
of Wales where the incidence of Covid-
19 remain low and where there is not
the medical infrastructure to deal with
an outbreak.
From Friday evening, if people travel
from a high incidence area, they will be
breaking the law in Wales. Police forces
will stop cars and try to persuade them
to go home and if they refuse, they will
be handed a fixed penalty notice.
The Police Federation of England
and Wales criticised the plans, describ-
ing them as “unenforceable”.
Mark Bleasdale, the federation’s
Welsh lead, said: “On the face of it, this
is unenforceable because of the difficul-
ty of identifying where people are com-
ing from and where they are going to.
“There will also be plenty of individu-
als travelling legitimately from areas
which are not high risk, and this will on-
ly add to the difficulties officers face
when policing the existing regulations.”
The ban puts pressure on Mr John-
son as support for Scottish independ-
ence reached a record level, according
to a poll. When undecided voters were
excluded, 58 per cent said they would
News Coronavirus
Union under strain amid border
vote “Yes” in another ballot and 42 per
cent would vote “No”, the research by
Ipsos Mori for STV News found. It is the
highest level of pro-independence sen-
timent recorded by the company.
With 6 per cent of voters still to make
up their minds, 55 per cent back separa-
tion with 39 per cent in favour of the
Union when they are included. Senior
figures in the SNP said ahead of the
2016 Scottish parliamentary election
that consistent polling of about 60 per
cent in favour of independence would
prove that the country had changed its
mind since the 2014 referendum.
Looking to the Holyrood election in
May, the poll suggests the SNP enjoys a
strong lead for both the constituency
and regional list, at 58 per cent and
47 per cent respectively. The Conserva-
tives are on 19 per cent in both votes,
Labour, 13 per cent, the Liberal Demo-
crats, 8 per cent, and the Greens on
9 per cent. Such a result would almost
certainly put the SNP within touching
distance of a Holyrood majority.
The UK government should agree to
a second referendum within the next
five years if the nationalists take full
control of the Scottish parliament, ac-
cording to 64 per cent of those sur-
veyed. Mr Johnson has signalled that
he will not countenance such a vote
while he is prime minister.
The popularity of Nicola Sturgeon,
the first minister, appears to be critical
to the surge in support for both the SNP
and independence, while her oppo-
nents are struggling to cut through.
The Westminster government’s
handling of the crisis is causing frac-
tures in the Conservative Party as well
as in the Union.
On Tuesday, 42 Tory MPs voted
against a 10pm curfew for hospitality
venues. The revolt included a number
of new Red Wall MPs rebelling for the
first time, including one who quit the
government over the issue.
Five of the nine Conservatives in
Greater Manchester, including two
newly elected MPs, defied the whip to
oppose the measures.
Last night backbenchers in northern
seats warned the prime minister that he
could expect more opposition if he at-
tempted to enforce a national “circuit
breaker” in coming weeks amid con-
cerns about the impact on jobs and
mental health.
One Conservative MP described the
revolt as “an expression of concern” and
warned that No 10 needed to set out
clearly “what is the condition on which
the success or failure of these measures
are judged” regarding the three-tier
system.Lucy Fisher, Will Humphries
Kieran Andrews Scottish Political Editor
Boris Johnson
clearly had more
pressing concerns
than his buttons
as he left No 10 for
PMQs yesterday