Boris Johnson's self-isolation order overshadows agenda 'reset'
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Boris Johnson has entered 14 days of self-isolation after coming into contact with an MP who had coronavirus, throwing his plans for a "reset" of his Downing Street operation into disarray.
The Prime Minister had intended to set out his “personal ambition” for the country this week as he sought to regain the initiative in the wake of the turmoil in Number 10.
But instead he must spend the next fortnight in his Downing Street flat, cut off from his staff and unable to make planned public appearances.
He must also oversee the final days of Brexit trade deal negotiations from his flat.
Mr Johnson was contacted by NHS Test and Trace and told that Tory MP Lee Anderson, who attended a meeting in Downing Street on Thursday, had tested positive for Covid-19.
The last time Mr Johnson self-isolated he was heavily reliant on Lee Cain, his director of communications, to run his office, but Mr Cain is no longer working in Number 10, having resigned last week. He was told to leave the building on Friday though he is still employed until mid-December.
The news will raise fresh questions about the policy of mandatory self-isolation, as the Prime Minister has already had coronavirus and there are so far hardly any cases of anyone in the world getting it twice.
It also put Downing Street's Covid-secure measures under scrutiny, as it claims to be a Covid-secure workplace but the Prime Minister was nevertheless in close proximity to a small group of visitors during a 35-minute meeting that put him at risk of infection.
On Sunday night, in a message to Tory MPs, Mr Johnson said: "Evening folks - the good news is that NHS test and trace continues to improve. The bad news is that I have been pinged!"
He went on: "I must now self-isolate for 14 days, and I will! It doesn’t matter that we were all following the guidance and socially distancing.
"It doesn’t matter that I feel fine - better than ever - or that my body is bursting with antibodies because I have already had the damn thing. The rules are the rules and they are there to stop the spread of the disease."
He said it would not "slow me down" and was "more confident than ever that we will end these exceptional measures on Dec 2 and continue to pummel Covid into submission".
He also thanked Mr Anderson "for being so punctilious and effective in identifying his contacts even if it means my temporary incarceration".
A spokesman for No 10 said Mr Johnson was well and does not have any symptoms of coronavirus. Mr Johnson will "follow the same rules that every other member of the public is asked to abide by", but intends to carry on "speaking to the country" during his 14 days of self-isolation, suggesting he could take part in a press conference this week from his flat.
He is also expected to take part remotely in some parliamentary business but will be unable to attend Prime Minister's questions for the next two Wednesdays.
Mr Johnson self-isolated in the flat before he was taken to hospital in the spring as he battled the virus.
The news is a blow to his planned relaunch of his “personal ambition” for the country this week. The Prime Minister will make a green industrial revolution the centrepiece of a series of announcements as he tries to move on from the feuding that led to the resignation of Dominic Cummings.
As well as setting out his 10-point plan for the environment on Wednesday, Mr Johnson will make what Downing Street described as “a series of critical announcements” that will be “a clear signal of his ongoing ambitions for the United Kingdom”.
No 10 said this will include "plans to tackle the coronavirus pandemic, as well as to level up opportunity across the country, invest in education, improve skills, create jobs, and build back better and greener from the coronavirus pandemic".
This marks the first time since he became Prime Minister that Mr Johnson will not have Mr Cummings (below) at his side, or director of communications Lee Cain, who also resigned last week after losing a bitter internal power struggle.
The Prime Minister will try to soften the image of the party by publishing a 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution, opening him to accusations that his fiancee Carrie Symonds, who was instrumental in Mr Cain’s departure and is an environmental campaigner, is influencing the agenda.
Mr Johnson also faces a showdown with Tory MPs in former “red wall” seats who see the environment as a side issue and want him to focus on policies that “apply in Redcar as much as in Richmond upon Thames”.
The Prime Minister will meet MPs from the newly formed Northern Research Group of backbenchers, where he will be told that jobs and the economy will win the next election, not the environment.
A spokesman for the group said the north had seen “unparalleled disruption” from Covid-19 and suggested the north must be “at the heart of this Government’s agenda”.
One “red wall” Tory MP said: “No one is against the green industrial revolution in principle, but that is all about jobs for the future, whereas voters want to know how we are going to save jobs today, and over the next few months.
“There is a divide between Tory MPs in marginal seats in the north, where education, health and jobs are the priorities, and MPs in safe seats in the south who want to be able to impress dinner party guests by flashing their green credentials.
“Those people who lent us their votes in 2019 are only going to vote for us again in 2024 if we have fixed the economy and fulfilled our promises on levelling up. Anyone who thinks we will win it by focusing on what David Cameron used to call ‘green crap’ is living in cloud cuckoo land.
“Instead, we need an agenda that applies in Redcar as much as it does in Richmond upon Thames.”
Downing Street insisted that Mr Johnson would use the meeting to "ensure that Northern MPs understand the Prime Minister’s personal ambition for levelling up the country".
Mr Johnson will also establish a policy board to come up with ideas that will appeal to northern working-class voters. It will be chaired by Harborough, Oadby and Wigston MP Neil O'Brien (see below), who helped former chancellor George Osborne devise the Northern Powerhouse policy.
It comes as Nick Timothy, Theresa May's former chief of staff, warned that the Conservatives now face a choice of whether to be "the party whose MPs are respectable enough to win back invitations to dinner parties in Islington and Notting Hill? Or make themselves the party of provincial normality, dependable enough to champion the values and interests of ordinary working people?"
The Prime Minister’s most high-profile communications adviser is now his press secretary Allegra Stratton, who sided with Ms Symonds in the coup that led to the departures of Mr Cummings and Mr Cain. She wants to soften the image of the Government and believes that pushing environmental policies are part of that process.
But a former Cabinet minister said: “Green policies are expensive and we are never going to be able to out-spend Labour on that sort of thing. It doesn’t matter how touchy-feely we are, we are not going to win the next election unless we can sort out the economy, get Brexit done, level up and safeguard the Union.
“We know what Dominic Cummings wanted, and we know what Carrie Symonds wanted, but the PM needs to put all this faff of the past week behind him and set out his own agenda.
“What people want to know is are you confident, are you in control and what is your vision?”
Ms Stratton has already imposed herself on the Government’s communications strategy by persuading Mr Johnson to lift a ban on Cabinet ministers appearing on ITV’s Good Morning Britain show, which was blamed on a feud between host Piers Morgan and Mr Cain.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock will on Monday become the first member of the Cabinet to be interviewed on the show for more than 200 days.
Next week, the Chancellor will outline the Government’s priorities for the next year in his Spending Review, and much of the Prime Minister’s time over the next fortnight will be taken up with trying to secure a Brexit trade deal and planning the next stage of the fight against coronavirus, when the current lockdown ends on December 2.
He is also searching for a new chief of staff – a job that was promised to Mr Cain before being vetoed by Ms Symonds – who will become his most senior aide and will shape his future relationship with the party.
A Downing Street spokesman said the Government was elected on a manifesto that promised to invest in education, skills and the NHS, as well as levelling up the country “and we will never veer off this course, as we build back better from the coronavirus pandemic”.
Mr Johnson is also this week expected to slash quarantine from 14 days to five days by introducing Covid-19 tests on the fifth day after travellers enter the UK.
The plans, drawn up by a taskforce chaired by Transport Secretary Grant Shapps and Health Secretary Matt Hancock, will mean any passenger returning from a “red list” country will pay a private medical company around £150 for a test on their fifth day in the UK, and within 24 hours be cleared for release from quarantine if negative.
Government sources said it aimed to have the testing ready for the Christmas holidays with its introduction “shortly” after the anticipated lifting of the current national lockdown and travel ban.
An announcement on the quarantine plans has been pencilled in for Friday.
