Senior Tories, including former ministers, are increasingly pressing the government to provide details of how the lockdown could be eased, calling for more transparency on the matter, The Guardian reported.
“The UK government now needs to recognise that the time is now. They need to bite the bullet and do it", Iain Duncan Smith, the former leader of the Conservative Party, told the edition on Thursday.
He went on to outline what he is particularly concerned about:
“My concern is that people are already beginning to do that. I’ve already noticed shops opening. I think they need to explain that we are not ready to come out yet but when we are, this is what’s going to happen".
Smith warned against a lack of information available to the public, saying Matt Hancock, the health secretary, was wrong to think that the government would lose control of restrictions by being transparent. He stressed that it was essential to convey to the public gavel-to-gavel what is being discussed at 10 Downing Street.
Theresa Villiers, the former environment secretary, likewise pointed out that government advisers now needed to come forward with more details of what they perceived to be the exit route out of the pandemic-inflicted crisis.
“We need a roadmap for a release from lockdown. I’m of course not saying that we should dispense with the advice of scientists and medics, but I think that ministers need to be more transparent now about how we will get to the point where the lockdown can be lifted", she said, stressing the necessity to give a glimmer of hope to crisis-struck businesses.
On Thursday, Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon explained how this part of the UK might lift restrictions on some businesses and re-open schools. Her Northern Irish counterpart, Arlene Foster, also suggested she could ease restrictions before England.
There has been reports of a split among Downing Street's ranks over how to exit the crisis: while the Cabinet “doves” led by Boris Johnson, who has been fighting the coronavirus himself, are believed to oppose lifting the lockdown early, there are also “hawks” - Chancellor Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss, etc. - that root for lifting the restrictions without delay.
The corona pandemic, raging across the globe since January, with most European countries and the US hit in late February and March, has left many businesses dead or struggling to survive. Long-standing economic networks and logistics have been crippled, as lockdowns and quarantines were introduced across-the-board to stem the spread if the virus, which has to date left well over 2.5 million people infected and around 175,000 dead, according to the WHO. The latter's fresh estimates suggest that in the UK alone, there have been over 133,400 confirmed cases and more than 18,000 fatalities.
