Liverpool ‘WILL be plunged into Tier Three lockdown TOMORROW’

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Boris Johnson held last-minute talks with key Cabinet colleagues tonight amid growing anger over plans for further coronavirus lockdowns in the north of England expected to be announced tomorrow. 

Local leaders in Liverpool said they have been told that their city would be among those placed in Tier Three lockdown, with pubs, gyms and casinos among the businesses told to close.

The Prime Minister is expected to address Parliament tomorrow to reveal the new nationwide three-tier system of restrictions as cases continue to rise. 

Liverpool mayor Joe Anderson, who earlier held a call with officials in London, tweeted tonight to say he had been told ‘no buts’ what would be imposed on his city, while insisting: ‘We have not agreed anything.’ 

Vast swathes of the north are facing a similar crackdown ahead of a new tiered system expected to be announced by Downing Street on Monday. The restrictions could last six months, with monthly assessments. 

Politicians from Manchester today launched a last-ditch appeal to ministers not to shut all pubs and restaurants in the city and instead hand them the power to only close those which are not meeting coronavirus safety restrictions.   

Liverpool recorded the second-highest infection rate in England in the 14 days before October 4, with 4,593 confirmed cases (928.2 per 100,000 people).

The neighbouring borough of Knowsley had the worst rate, with 1,412 cases and an infection rate of 944.

Downing Street sources said no decision had yet been taken on where a Tier Three system would apply.

Liverpool’s mayor Joe Anderson tweeted tonight: ‘We have not agreed anything, we have been told this is what Government intends to do with “no buts.” I and all the Leaders of the CA and @MetroMayorSteve have not accepted anything we have been trying to get financial support to protect our businesses and support our Region.’ 

As the mayors in the north threatened legal action over ‘oppressive’ lockdowns imposed from London:

• Britain recorded 12,872 new Covid cases – just 9% more than last Sunday’s adjusted total – and 65 deaths;
• Researchers found Covid-19 can survive for a month on surfaces including banknotes and phone screens;
• London could be shielded from the worst of a second wave because one in eight people have antibodies;
• Town hall bosses will be given powers to deploy volunteers to knock on doors and ask people to self-isolate;
• Labour leaders in the North demanded more cash handouts from the government to support lockdown and called the new furlough scheme ‘insufficient’; 
• Doctors have warned face masks should be mandatory inside and outside to curb the spread of infections; 
• BCG vaccine was given to 1,000 people in Exeter University trial to test claims that it helps fight Covid by stimulating the immune system;
• Schoolchildren have been banned from singing Happy Birthday over fears it could spread covid; 
• Health Secretary Matt Hancock made a tasteless ‘drinks on me’ Covid test joke in Commons bar as he ‘joined MPs flouting 10pm curfew’; 
• ‘Rule of Six’ restriction may be lifted temporarily by Chancellor Rishi Sunak over the festive period.

Manchester is also understood to be in the Government’s three-tiered sights, with five of the city’s MPs today warning Mr Johnson of the ‘devastating impact’ of closing businesses.

Not only would ‘jobs, livelihoods and businesses,’ be put on the line, but more illegal gatherings would result, they said.

The letter was sent by Labour’s Lucy Powell, Jeff Smith, Mike Kane, Afzal Khan and Graham Stringer. 

Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham this morning blasted a lack of communication from the Government, telling Times Radio: ‘To be called to a meeting with 10 Downing Street on a Friday evening, to be effectively presented with proposals that needed to be agreed over the weekend, I mean that isn’t adequate or acceptable consultation to me. 

‘That is being railroaded into a position. It’s all come too late.’

Mr Johnson’s plans were also savaged by the leader of Bolton Council, who warned they would  destroy the economy of the north of England at a time when he was trying to ‘build back better’, including in former Red Wall Labour seats taken at the 2019 General Election.

And giving a brutal assessment of the plans on the BBC’s Andrew Marr programme this morning, David Greenhalgh said: ‘My immediate reaction is that it is oppressive.’ 

A further 32 people who tested positive for coronavirus have died in hospital in England, bringing the total number of confirmed deaths reported in hospitals to 30,471, NHS England said this afternoon.  

Mr Burnham, asked on Times Radio what he would say to Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick, said: ‘Isn’t it time for a major change here, a complete reversal of what we have seen so far?

‘Localising the response to this crisis but critically, as Joe (Anderson, Liverpool mayor) said, putting in place a help package and an economic package to help the North of England through.

‘I would say to him this, are we levelling up here or are we levelling down? Which is it?

‘If you go ahead with this financial package, in my view, that will be to break what the Government said it would do when they were elected.

‘If they continue with this, jobs will be lost, businesses will collapse, the fragile economies of the North will be shattered.

‘The Government has a real choice here, if it proceeds on the path it is on, in my view, the central so-called mission of this Government to level-up will be over.’

Shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy told Marr: ‘It’s really hard to explain how angry people are in the north of England about what has happened, not just over the last few months but over the last few days. I haven’t felt anger like this towards the government since I was growing up here in the 1980s. 

‘People feel that they haven’t just been abandoned by the government, they now feel that the government is actively working against us.’

Mr Jenrick insisted today that the Government is working closely with local leaders ahead of new coronavirus measures being brought in.

He told Sky News’ Sophy Ridge on Sunday: ‘We have spent the weekend working with those local leaders.

‘I have spent the whole weekend talking to leaders from Merseyside, from Greeter Manchester, from other parts of the country.

‘We are trying to work very closely with mayors, with council leaders, with chief executives to design these measures with them. That does take time.

‘We want to have good communication between national and local government before we announce how we are going to take this forwards.’

Mr Greenhalgh also took aim at the new Job Support Scheme (JSS) unveiled by Rishi Sunak on Friday, warning that anything less than support on the level of the original furlough programme would send firms ‘to the wall’.

He added: ‘We cannot ”build back better” if we have lost some of these businesses.’

The Prime Minister is expected to introduce a three-tier system of lockdown measures in an attempt to make the existing patchwork of restrictions easier to understand.

Areas with relatively low infection levels will be placed in ‘tier one’, where only national restrictions such as the ‘rule of six’ and the 10pm curfew on pubs and restaurants will apply.

Tier two will also include bans on home visits and indoor socialising with other households. Options for tier three include total closure of the hospitality sector, a ban on overnight stays outside the home and the closure of venues such as cinemas.

Swathes of the North of England, including Manchester and Liverpool, could be placed immediately into the tier with the most severe restrictions, so pubs and restaurants would have to shut their doors.

Mr Greenhalgh added: ‘We have put our proposals in as Greater Manchester leaders … that we are against a lockdown as we understand it, at Tier 3, which is the complete lockdown of hospitality.

‘Our position is very clear that we feel we need to move to extra restrictions, but ones that protect those most vulnerable and susceptible to the virus but ones that don’t continue to have an adverse effect on our local businesses and economy.’

Real estate adviser Altus Group has said there are 7,171 pubs in areas with restrictions across the north of England at risk of temporary closure.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced on Friday workers in businesses which are forced to close under the new restrictions will have two-thirds of their wages paid by the Government under the JSS.

But it is less generous than the furlough scheme which comes to an end on October 31. 

Asked about Mr Sunak’s JSS revamp, unveiled on Friday, Mr Greenhalgh added that anything less generous than the original furlough was ‘quite frankly unacceptable’.

‘Many of these businesses will sadly go under,’ he said. 

‘We cannot build back better if we have lost some of these businesses. These great independent businesses that people put their life savings into will be lost.

‘The north feels like it is being treated differently. We know our (covid)  rates are high, we are not underestimating that, but we have to find a way through this that … looks at the economy.

‘We cannot throw our local economy to the wall, to kill it in the north.’

Britain recorded another 12,872 coronavirus cases on Sunday, marking a nine per cent increase on last Sunday’s adjusted total which followed the Government’s extraordinary figures blunder.

The figures mark a 2,294-case drop from yesterday’s daily total of 15,166. Saturday’s death toll was 81 – 16 more deaths than the 65 recorded today. 

On Saturday, Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, England’s deputy chief medical officer said ‘the seasons are against us’ and the country is running into a ‘headwind’ ahead of the winter months.

In a statement, Prof Van-Tam said that while the epidemic ‘re-started’ again among younger people over the past few weeks, there is ‘clear evidence of a gradual spread into older age groups’ in the worst-hit areas.

But he also said the UK has ‘much improved testing capabilities’ and ‘better treatments’ available, meaning that ‘we know where it is and how to tackle it’.

He stressed the importance of following public health guidance and minimising contact with others, adding: ‘I know this is very hard, but it is an unfortunate scientific fact that the virus thrives on humans making social contact with one another.’