Inside Politics: Johnson to set out booster programme plan as new mask mandate comes into force

Fresh mask restrictions came into force today as the pandemic enters a new phase amid growing concern over the Omicron variant. Boris Johnson is expected to outline the government’s plan to roll out booster shots later, following the vaccine watchdog’s advice that the shots should be made available to everyone over the age of 18. Elsewhere, Labour leader Keir Starmer has reshuffled his top team, the UK and France and still embroiled in a war of words over the Channel crisis and Prince Charles acknowledged the “appalling atrocity of slavery” as he attended a ceremony marking Barbados’s transition to a republic.

Our chief political commentator John Rentoul on what to look out for:

Cabinet meets this morning. As they are not a shop or public transport, we can assume they will not be wearing masks. Liz Truss has Foreign Office questions in the Commons at 11.30. The House of Lords starts its consideration of the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill, giving back to the prime minister the power to choose election dates. In committees, Jacob Rees-Mogg, leader of the Commons, gives evidence on what constitutes contempt of a select committee; and Dominic Raab is in front of the Justice Committee.

Coming up:

–New shadow levelling up secretary Lisa Nandy on Sky News at 8.05am

–UK Health Security Agency chief Jenny Harries on BBC Breakfast at 8.20am

RACE ON TO STOP ‘CRON: The vaccines watchdog confirmed yesterday what had been widely reported in the morning: booster jabs are to be extended to all adults over the age of 18, with a reduced waiting time of three months after second doses. Young people aged 12 to 15 will also be offered a second dose as the country mobilises in an attempt to get ahead of the Omicron variant, more cases of which were found in the UK and which experts fear is more transmissible than the Delta strain. The NHS is now racing to get injections in arms and scrambling to assemble an army of volunteers to deliver at least 20 million shots over the coming weeks. Prime minister Boris Johnson is expected to hold a press conference later this afternoon where he will present Downing Street’s plan to roll out the programme.

GRIM ASSESSMENT: LSE’s Professor John Edmunds, a member of the government’s SAGE group of scientific advisors and models, gave one of the most sobering assessments of the new variant in an interview with Channel 4 News last night. He said that cases in South Africa are increasing rapidly despite the population being largely immune – through natural immunity or inoculation – and pointed out that, even if Omicron is no more severe than Delta but is far more transmissible, that will inevitably result in an increase in hospitalisations – the key metric driving decision-making in Whitehall. “This is a very serious turn for the worst, there’s no question about that. It’s early days, but the early indications look very poor,” he said. As always we’ll be bringing you live updates on the pandemic throughout the day here.

MASK MANDATE: Sajid Javid, the health secretary, gave a statement to the Commons where he confirmed new mask rules for England. They are now mandatory in shops and public transport but not in pubs and restaurants. Javid said the measures are temporary and precautionary, with MPs getting a vote later. The health secretary did not rule out a new lockdown at some point in the future, although he signalled this would not happen over Christmas. He told MPs that no-one wanted to see a return to measures of the sort deployed when the coronavirus first emerged last year. But Javid was unable to give a positive response to Tory MP Richard Drax’s plea for a pledge “that he will never ever go back to locking this country down”. Labour said the government should never have removed mask restrictions in the first place, saying it will now be harder to make people comply with the new rules. Leaders in the devolved nations are calling for stricter border controls in a bid to halt the spread of Omicron. Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, said that some of the six cases confirmed there yesterday had no links to travel to South Africa, suggesting community transmission is already underway.

PACK RESHUFFLED: Emboldened by a bounce in the polls and solid performances at recent speaking events, Keir Starmer conducted a surprise reshuffle of his top team yesterday, with former minister Yvette Cooper’s move to shadow home secretary the headline change. An experienced MP who chairs the Home Affairs Select Committee, Cooper is seen as an effective operator who it is hoped can land more blows on the current home secretary than her predecessor managed. “Much to do,” she tweeted on taking the new job. “The Home Office is badly letting people down.” In other changes, London MP David Lammy has been promoted to shadow foreign secretary and there is a scaled-back role for former leader Ed Miliband, who has been stripped of his responsibilities for business policy and will focus on climate and net zero. Elsewhere, Lisa Nandy has moved from shadow foreign secretary to shadow Michael Gove’s levelling up brief and Jonathan Reynolds becomes shadow business secretary. Once again the reshuffle was not exactly straightforward, with Starmer and Angela Rayner, Labour deputy, embroiled in a tiff after the latter appeared to be blindsided by the changes.

CHANNEL CRISIS: Britain’s row with France over the Channel crisis is still very much live and there was no dialling down of rhetoric yesterday as Paris accused London of “not taking its share” of asylum seekers. Gerald Darmanin told a press conference that thousands of people were making the treacherous journey across the Channel in dinghies because “they have no other way” of reaching the UK. He also said France would not accept pushbacks at sea, or joint patrols involving British authorities to stop boats from being launched. “Can you imagine French police officers on British beaches?” he asked. “We are not the subcontractors of the British government.”

SECOND JOB CONTRACTS: MPs with second jobs could be made to sign contracts that ban them from lobbying or political consultancy work, under proposals backed by the standards watchdog. A new draft report drawn up by the parliamentary standards committee backs a call by Boris Johnson for an outright ban on any MPs providing paid parliamentary advice, consultancy or strategy services. To enforce this, the committee says all second jobs must have a written contract outlining an MPs’ duties – and explicitly banning them from “lobbying Ministers, Members or public officials on behalf of that employer”.

‘SLAVERY WAS AN ATROCITY’: Prince Charles has acknowledged the “appalling atrocity of slavery”, describing it as something “which forever stains our history”, during the ceremony marking Barbados’ historic transition to a republic. Charles summed up the period when the UK was one of the leading players in the transatlantic slave trade as the “darkest days of our past”, but looking to the future said the “creation of this republic offers a new beginning”.

“We need everyone on the pitch to up their game and play their part to come forward for boosters. It has never been more vital than at this point.”

England’s deputy chief medical officer Jonathan Van-Tam calls on public to get their booster jabs.

“That Wes Streeting gets to shadow an actually existing cabinet brief and Ed Miliband has been moved to shadow an entirely made-up one is an object lesson in the esteem in which this Labour leadership holds each of them.”

Times Red Box editor Patrick Maguire on Labour reshuffle.

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