Vaccine passports

Since becoming Health Secretary there has been one big question Sajid Javid cannot answer: how can he justify firing a worker who has recovered from Covid, has antibodies and doesn’t want the vaccine? Javid first did this with unjabbed care home workers and now plans to fire unjabbed NHS doctors. Today he met one of them — and it didn’t go well. Javid’s answer? He didn’t have one During a visit to King’s College Hospital in south London, Javid was on camera talking to NHS staff asking them what they thought about his plans for compulsory vaccination. He presumably expected them to agree. But then along comes Steve James, an intensive care doctor who

In spite of a last-minute plea from Boris Johnson to the 1922 committee, exactly one hundred Tory backbenchers voted against the government on the introduction of Covid certification passes. With Labour announcing in advance that they would support Sajid Javid in implementing the so-called ‘Plan B’ measures, it was obvious that they would always pass. But few were expecting such a large Tory revolt, with audible gasps being heard when the tellers read out the result. The rebellion was nearly twice as large as the previous biggest revolt of Johnson’s administration in December 2020, also on Covid and the introduction of tier restrictions. For context, some 118 Tory MPs voted

The Prime Minister has just announced Plan B. Working from home has been all but mandated and large venues — as well as nightclubs — will be required to check for vaccine passports. But where is the evidence for this, and what does the data say? Johnson’s vaccine passport idea copies Nicola Sturgeon’s policy in Scotland which was found, in a 70-page evidence paper, not to have had any measurable effect. As evidence Chris Whitty presented South African hospitalisations — a country with less than a third vaccinated. When Omicron was discovered the government said we should wait for data to be gathered before reacting. Sensible, given the huge economic

Over the past week, the government have been upping the ante when it comes to calls for vaccine passports. Long gone are the days when ministers went out on the airwaves to declare that the UK was not a ‘papers please’ country. Instead, the Prime Minister has already declared that they will be needed to enter nightclubs from September while Dominic Raab this week promised to provide prior warning if – as has been reported – vaccine passports become mandatory for students at university. Long gone are the days when ministers went out on the airwaves to declare that the UK was not a ‘papers please’ country However, it’s something

I have to admit that I didn’t quite get it right when, 12 days ago, I wrote: ‘There is a model for what will be coming our way if we do not resist vaccination passports and electronic ID cards: China’s social credit system, which blacklists people for numerous antisocial offences, from crossing the street on a red light to failing to sort their recycling, and uses the information to deny them the right, for example, to buy rail and airline tickets.’ I had in mind that it would take two to five years for a vaccination passport scheme to morph into a Chinese-style social credit system. In fact, it took

When the government announced a Commons vote on its decision to cut the foreign aid budget from 0.7 per cent of GNI to 0.5, the expectation was that the vote would be tight. In the end, the government won comfortably: it had a majority of 35. But despite their success, the whips would be wrong to be feeling triumphalist about this, I write in the magazine this week The usual whips’ line — if you keep your nose clean preferment might come your way — is ineffective Twenty-four Tories voted against the government, 14 of which were former ministers. The overwhelming majority of these are either uninterested in returning to

Are vaccine passports in our future? The ‘Covid-status certification’ review is underway, carved out of the Prime Minister’s roadmap and handed to Michael Gove in the Cabinet Office to assess and very possibly implement the scheme after Britain has been declared ‘free’. Since the first review update was published — clear on intention but vague on the details — there’s been plenty of speculation as to what kinds of events or establishments might require a passport to access them. Today we got some hints. A written statement from Gove has been published, on the ongoing ‘extensive review’ that has so far involved consulting ‘clinical, ethical, equalities and privacy specialists, faith and

No prime minister wants to be dependent on the opposition to get the government’s business through the House of Commons. But this is the position Boris Johnson will likely find himself in when it comes to ‘Covid status certificates’, I argue in the magazine this week. Labour are sounding sceptical of vaccine passports at the moment More than 40 Tory MPs have already signed a pledge to oppose vaccine passports, and the government’s majority is 80. ‘It is just down to Starmer. If he whips against, Boris will lose,’ says one of the leaders of the Tory rebellion. The policy has hit a nerve in the Conservative party. Tory opponents

As opposition grows to government plans to introduce vaccine passports, not even the Prime Minister appears keen to defend the proposals. In Monday’s press conference, Johnson refused to be drawn into a conversation about the plans and wouldn’t even say whether there would be a Commons vote on the policy. However, government figures suggest the proposals will be put to a vote should they be given the green light in government. So, how will Keir Starmer vote when the time comes? Today Labour have suggested they will oppose the plans for domestic vaccine passports in their current form. A Labour source told Politico they were unlikely to support the plans

The biggest question facing Boris Johnson is the future of his so-called vaccine passports. A few months ago, the idea was dismissed by No. 10 as ‘discriminatory’. Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, said: ‘We are not a papers-carrying country.’ But now, without debate or democratic scrutiny, vaccine passports are quickly heading from unthinkable to unstoppable. Today, No. 10 released more details — hence the questions Johnson is facing. But bizarrely, the Prime Minister was unable to admit to any of it, and pretended to be confused by what he was being asked. This matters. If he cannot acknowledge his flagship scheme, leaving such an indefensible gulf between what his government has just published and what he has just said, he may already be

It wasn’t so long ago that ministers were lining up on broadcast to insists vaccine passports were out of the question when it came to the UK. While they could be used for travel abroad, the UK was — as Matt Hancock put it — not a ‘papers, please’ country. Instead, the UK appears to be turning into an ‘app, please’ nation. On Monday, Michael Gove met with MPs across the House for a private ‘listening exercise’ on immunity IDs. Although the purpose of the session was supposedly to gather MPs’ thoughts on the issue of vaccine passports, attendees were left with the distinct impression that they would be going ahead regardless of

Do vaccines lead to freedom – or to more lockdown rules? That very question would have seemed bizarre a few weeks ago, when Matt Hancock told this magazine that he’d ‘cry freedom’ when the most vulnerable had been protected. But now, things are swinging the other way. The end of the second wave in Britain (infections and intensive care admissions are down 95 per cent from the peak) has not been followed by reopening. Instead, it’s being used as rationale to continue lockdown for months to come. The latest is international travel: the freedom to leave the country. As we reach the milestone of over half of UK adults having

Will they, won’t they? Only yesterday the Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab was saying vaccine passports were ‘under consideration’ — going directly against what Nadim Zahawi said just days before when he ruled out vaccine passports as discriminatory and un-British.  Raab was clear that the UK was looking at both domestic and foreign passports: that as well as looking at the possibility of their use for flights and international travel, the British government is also investigating whether such a document could be used for vaccinated individuals wanting to go into a restaurant or visit the supermarket.  So what does Matt Hancock have to say on the subject? On the Today programme just now, the Health

Only last week, vaccine minister Nadhim Zahawi assured us that the government is not looking at vaccine passports as they would be discriminatory and un-British. So imagine Mr S’s astonishment when Dominic Raab admitted that they are indeed being considered in Britain – for internal and external use. When asked on LBC whether a domestic vaccine passport – ‘where you have to show a bit of paper to go into a supermarket’ – could be brought in, Raab confirmed: ‘It’s something that hasn’t been ruled out and is under consideration, but of course you’ve got to make it workable.’ The Foreign Secretary continued: ‘You’ve got to know that the document