For the sake of Britain’s security and credibility, it should be scrapped entirely.
The Bill contains an implementation clause that allows the Health Secretary to decide when its main provisions take effect. In plain terms, it can be switched on when it suits the Government—and held back when it does not.
While ministers have talked tough on NHS strikes, their legislation quietly makes striking easier, undermining the very principles they claim to defend.
The patients, the taxpayer and the workforce need more than a placebo; they need evidence-based treatment. They need a plan that works and works together.
If Conservative MPs do not respect one another, if we continue to fight publicly and leak against each other, we will remain in Opposition.
Although we all have to be working for the best, we also have to be preparing for the worst.
Those on the frontline deserve to be protected, be it from assault or a virus – and we shouldn’t forget or negate that.
The vast majority of those who follow the rules have enabled those of us outside Leicester to avoid a second lockdown so far.
I see my role as being that of an honest broker in a fluid situation. I’m determined not to put information out because I want to be first with the news.
Independent retailers told me that the Government, though no means has been perfect, has supported them through the darkest of times.
What I learned after a local Labour activist wrote to me on the basis of a newspaper report about the virus locally.
I’ve been thinking about how we can make planning even more accountable and predictable too. I would love to hear your thoughts on my ideas.
There is an unsolvable and immeasurable balance between lives and livelihoods. So we are going to need consensus across the House.
Defensive medicine may intellectually go against years of training and logic, but it keeps us legally protected. But it might not work in these wartime conditions.
We are asked to believe that a Prime Minister can personally determine the outcome, while remaining detached from the system that delivers it. That he can shape the direction, but not own the destination. That when the machinery of Government bends around a political decision, the responsibility lies only with those who turned the gears.