Latest updates: Keir Starmer says no to limiting access to sporting events to fully jabbed; union boss says employers confused about exemption rules
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Public transport services are being hit by staff self-isolating, PA Media reports. PA says:
Reduced timetables have been introduced on railways across England in an attempt to improve reliability after a recent spate of last-minute cancellations due to staff shortages. Passengers are being advised to check their train is running before they leave home.
Thameslink and Southern has cut its weekday timetables on five routes “until further notice”, and warned that further changes could be required.
Here are the main lines from Sir Keir Starmer’s LBC phone-in.
I think that [vaccination] passports on their own aren’t enough because, as we know, sadly, you can be double jabbed and still get the new variant. So it’s got to be passports plus testing. And that would be for sporting events etc.
What I don’t want to see, just to be very clear about this, is I don’t want to see vaccine passports used on an everyday basis for access to critical things like health, dentistry, food, etc.
So, for sporting events, I’ll look at what the government puts on the table. I want to be pragmatic because we all want all business sectors and sporting sectors to return as quickly as possible. But not for everyday use, because I don’t want to see people denied health, dentistry, food they haven’t got a vaccine passport.
So, if that works – data not dates – then we should support it, look again at 16 August, which is the day when the rules are supposed to change.
I’m hoping we can do something because at the moment it’s absolute chaos, as you will know, in terms of keeping the economy going.
No I don’t think that’s the right way.
I think that if it is possible to show that, with a double vaccination and a negative test, critical workers can go back to work, I would support that.
Monday’s Telegraph: Unions fight virus testing plan to ease pingdemic #TomorrowsPapersToday #DailyTelegraph #Telegraph pic.twitter.com/hStxzipSA5
I agree with what Dawn had to say. I think the prime minister is the master of untruth and half truths. Dawn was simply giving some examples of that. I think there’s a lot of people that feel that it’s the person who’s not telling the truth rather than the person who’s calling it out that ought to be on the hotspot. So I agree with Dawn on that.
But, in fairness to the temporary [deputy] Speaker, Judith Cummins, who was there, she did the right thing, she followed the rules, because parliament doesn’t allow you to call other parliamentarians liars in the chamber. So I don’t criticise the deputy Speaker for what she did. She was following the rules.
Of course have a system where victims get information, they’re consulted, they’re engaged. I’m absolutely in favour of that, I would actually put that in law.
This is just a gimmick by the prime minister – yet again, he loves soundbites, he loves slogans, he loves gimmicks – but every time you look beyond it, there’s nothing there. This one won’t work, it won’t improve [things], if anything it will make things worse because individual officers work shifts, they’re doing investigations, they’re off duty. It will actually slow things down. It’s an ill-thought-through gimmick.
I think it would have to be negotiated – 15% is high – but I think what the unions are doing now is right.
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