Following yesterday’s news that face coverings are going to be compulsory in shops from Friday 24th, it now seems that this law may be extended to offices as well. The Daily Telegraph leads with the story this morning, reporting that the government is becoming increasingly worried about a second wave of infections.
Such rules, according to the health secretary Matt Hancock may well stay in place until next summer.
Telegraph columnist Alison Pearson is not too impressed by the news, arguing that ‘the British bulldog has become the scaredy-cat of Europe.’
This has also doubtless gone down very badly with Tory MP Sir Desmond Swayne who was furious enough yesterday at the thought of compulsory masks in shops. ‘Nothing would make me less likely to go shopping,’ he said, ‘than the thought of having to mask up.’
Labour MP Chris Bryant tried to defuse the situation, suggesting that, as a knight of the realm, Sir Desmond should think of his mask as his visor.
One of Sir Desmond’s notable former colleagues on the Tory benches will soon be acquainting himself with a country even more keen on face coverings than this one, with The Daily Telegraph reporting that former chancellor Philip Hammond has landed a new job advising Saudi Arabia’s finance minister.
The Times has followed up on yesterday’s story about Britain’s plans to oust Huawei from our 5G telecoms network with news that President Trump has given himself the credit for the decision.
The president claimed that he had warned Britain we would be unable to do business with the US unless we dropped the Chinese-government backed telecommunications giant.
The Times’ lead story however is the news that the chancellor has ordered a review of capital gains tax in order to help pay for the Covid-19 outbreak, with the possibility that he may well raise the tax on capital gains to the same level as income tax.
The Treasury has downplayed the significance:
“It is standard practice to review taxes and CGT is one of the few taxes that has not yet been reviewed. There is absolutely no expectation anything substantive will come out of this in terms of policy change. CGT reform is not in our sights.”
Photo by Avi Richards on Unsplash
