covid

The Weekly Round-Up: Lockdown Again (Again)

5 January 2021 by Alethea Redfern

In the News:

So: here we are again.

Rampant spread, fuelled by a combination of a new variant that is around 50-70% more transmissible, plus a lifting of restrictions at the beginning of December, brings us into another national lockdown.

In many ways, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s first address of 2021 felt unpleasantly like a return to early 2020.

The original “Stay Home” messaging made a comeback. The Prime Minister was deliberately vague about how long lockdown would last. Big Brother Watch criticised the  government for “yet again … evading the democratic process” by denying MPs a meaningful vote on the new national restrictions prior to their televised announcement to the nation, or their coming into force. The new guidance differs from the Tier 4 guidance in emphasis, if not substance.

Ever the optimist, the Prime Minister was keen to emphasise “one huge difference” between this lockdown and the first one: the UK is “rolling out the biggest vaccination programme in its history”. He also managed to get in a jab at the UK having delivered more vaccines than the rest of Europe combined.

There were other, more subtle differences, as No. 10 tweaked its messaging in light of past mistakes.

The Weekly Round-Up: Tension Over Begum and Procurement

24 November 2020 by Alethea Redfern

In the News:

There is a long history of crossover between lawyers and politicians; more members of parliament come from the law than almost any other profession. But the relationship – never totally tranquil – has become more strained in recent years.

The Weekly Round-Up: Three Tiers

19 October 2020 by Alethea Redfern

In the News:

On 12 October 2020, the Prime Minister made a statement in Parliament and addressed the nation to announce a new three tier lockdown system would be introduced across the country. The Secretary of State for Health introduced three statutory instruments before Parliament which came into force two days later.

In oversimplified terms, the restrictions in place in each tier are as follows:

The Weekly Round-Up: rising Covid-19 cases and constitutional concerns

21 September 2020 by Alethea Redfern

In the News:

The Joint Committee on Human Rights has published a report which proposes that the Government must urgently consider the human rights implications of its Covid-19 measures.

The report drew attention to eight problem areas, claiming: