COVID déjà vu — Cabinet New Year resolutions — Ukraine in 2023 – POLITICO

Good Friday morning. This is Esther Webber, seeing out 2022 with a slightly stale mince pie in hand. Annabelle Dickson will be here to guide you into 2023. 

DRIVING THE DAY

DÉJÀ VU ALL OVER AGAIN: One year — maybe one year soon — we will have a festive period devoid of COVID headlines, but this ain’t it. The government is sticking firmly to the line that there are no plans to introduce new testing for arrivals from China, despite calls from some MPs to take precautionary steps. A government spokesman said the U.K. Health Security Agency “will continue to closely monitor harmful variants and keep available international data under review.”

Latest from Rome: The United States, Japan and Italy are all now enforcing testing on visitors from China, following a surge in cases there after Beijing’s decision to do away with its zero-COVID policy. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said last night there was no sign of new variants among passengers arriving in Italy from China in recent days. But she warned that steps taken by Italy would not be enough in isolation and called for an EU-wide testing regime to be introduced. POLITICO’s Hannah Roberts has more.

How’s that going down? So far, none of Italy’s EU neighbors seem to be paying much attention to Meloni’s call. Reuters’ Giselda Magnoni and Philip Blenkinsop report that Brigitte Autran, head of the French health risk assessment committee, views the situation as under control, while Germany and Portugal have both dismissed the idea of new travel restrictions. At the EU level, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) has branded screenings and travel measures on people arriving from China as “unjustified.” More on that from POLITICO’s Helen Collis.

Not everyone agrees: Steve Brine, Conservative chairman of the health select committee, became the highest-profile MP yet to question the U.K.’s approach as he told BBC Radio 4’s PM it may be better to “overreact than under-react here.” He said China is “such a secretive society” and “we know that their data is withheld and is unreliable.”

Nothing to see here: A government aide insisted to Playbook it was “sensible” to keep things under review as the data flows in, but “there has been no inkling of concern raised today.”

What a difference 2-and-a-bit years makes: An interesting aside is that some of the most outspoken critics of lockdown restrictions during the pandemic — from both the front and back benches — are now running the show. Mark Harper is in charge of the U.K.’s transport policy, while then-chief secretary to the Treasury, Steve Barclay, is now the health sec. Not to mention what happened to the sometime-chancellor who was often found arguing against tighter restrictions within Cabinet. 

Rishi resists? It’s a point made on the front of the Telegraph, where Charles Hymas, Ben Riley-Smith and Lizzie Roberts report that the return of COVID rules “is being resisted” by Sunak. While No. 10 did not want to elaborate on his views, a government official stressed that as health secretary, Barclay “is focused on public safety, studying evidence and listening to advice from experts.”

And that advice is … No change for now. The Telegraph team and the Times’ Chris Smyth both report that compulsory new tests have been ruled out for the time being. Scientific advisers told ministers there is little value in trying to prevent the arrival of cases from China when more than a million people in Britain are already infected and there is no sign of a dangerous new variant, per the Times.

But but but: The i’s David Parsley and Jane Merrick hear that anyone who takes a PCR test — for example, people in hospitals or care homes — will be asked if they have recently traveled to China and their samples fast-tracked to detect any potential new variant. They’ve also caught wind of the new Cabinet faultlines, with Foreign Secretary James Cleverly apparently one of several senior ministers more open to plans to test Chinese passengers arriving in Britain.

TODAY IN WESTMINSTER

PARLIAMENT: Nope, still nothing.

HARD TIMES: Labour’s winter media blitz continues, as i’s Arj Singh picks up on the party’s analysis of Bank of England data which shows more than 6 million households in England faced hardship this year, even before the October hike in energy bills. Shadow Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson is in the Sun, accusing the Conservatives of “pushing the childcare system to breaking point” after Labour research suggesting that 5,000 childcare providers have closed in the space of a year.

MISSING MEALS: The Department for Education has admitted that more than one in 10 pupils who are eligible for free school meals are not registered for them. The Liberal Democrats, who asked DfE for the numbers, are calling for the introduction of an automatic enrolment system. The TES’ Matilda Martin has the details.

IN THE RED: The front of the Mail is equally worrying, as Lucy White and Kumall Mier report on research by PwC showing that the average household now has £16,200 in unsecured debt such as loans, overdrafts and credit card borrowing. In a similar vein, the Times’ Patrick Hosking highlights the number of people who have abandoned saving into pensions in the past year to meet rising fuel and food bills.

NOT MUCH COP: Thousands of police officers recruited under Boris Johnson’s flagship manifesto pledge to boost numbers have already resigned, figures obtained by i’s Steve Robson suggest. The Home Office says retention is a priority, but the story comes at an unhelpful juncture for the government as it seeks to demonstrate a boost in police recruitment.

FIGHTING TALK: The only place the government seems to be in bullish form is on the front of the Times, where Steven Swinford hears from sources that unions are running out of money in “an act of self-harm against their own workers.” The TUC’s Paul Nowak naturally accused ministers of trying to “sabotage” talks while insisting they have the resources to support members, but the story shows the stirrings of some kind of will from the government to set the tone over the quiet Christmas period.

BREXMAS TRUCE: Whisper it, but could there be fresh hope on the horizon for the U.K.-EU relationship? My POLITICO colleague Cristina Gallardo knows more than most, and she finds that following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February and the departure of Boris Johnson, the dynamic has shifted, and Downing Street is showing a new willingness to conclude thorny negotiations over how Gibraltar and Northern Ireland will conduct business with the EU. Deals on both issues could be signed off in the early part of 2023, Cristina reports.

Some things never change: Speaking to the FT’s George Parker, former Business Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg urges Sunak to stick to a 2023 deadline for reviewing or scrapping EU-era laws on the U.K. statute book. He warns that Labour would claim the Conservatives had a secret agenda to abolish sensitive workplace and environmental protections if the exercise is not completed before the next general election.

Now read this: In today’s Brussels Playbook, my colleague Suzanne Lynch has interviewed Uwe Kitzinger, an adviser to Christopher Soames, the first British vice president of the European Commission, who was the commissioner for external relations when the U.K. joined in 1973. Having been centrally involved in the first British referendum on EU membership in 1975, and the two failed attempts to join in the 60s due to French President Charles de Gaulle’s resistance, Kitzinger’s views on Brexit are not surprising: “There was no preparation. Most of the popular newspapers said get out; it was obvious that Mr Johnson decided over lunch which way he was going to go.” Kitzinger said he regrets not weighing into the debate during the 2016 campaign — a feeling he says is now shared by many others. “We should have spoken up. We all took it for granted, did not think it would happen.”

CHRISTMAS FOR KEIR: Labour is looking at a 26-point lead over the Tories heading into 2023, according to a survey by People Polling for GB News, which is picked up by the Mirror’s Ben Glaze. Keir Starmer’s party is on 45 percent with the Conservatives on 19 percent, while the Reform Party has reached level pegging with the Lib Dems on 8 percent.

HEY BIG SPENDERS: One in 10 Conservative peers has made big donations to the party, according to new analysis by the Guardian’s Rowena Mason. Splashing the cash has long been known as a reliable route into the House of Lords, but Rowena finds it became more of a thing under Theresa May and Boris Johnson — just as the upper chamber’s role in public life comes under fresh scrutiny.

WATCH THIS SPACE: Playbook is keeping a close eye on all things APPG-related after our series of reports on allegations of misconduct by MPs on foreign trips. Chris Bryant, chairman of the standards committee, upped the ante as he revealed his committee would meet again in the next two weeks to decide what action to take. Referring to the Times’ story about an MP repeatedly propositioning interns on a visit, he said: “Any MP who witnessed that must report that to the ICGS [Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme].” However, as Playbook understands it, the ICGS does not currently look into complaints made by a third party — one for the committee to consider?

SNP WHIP RESTORED: SNP MP Patrick Grady has had the SNP whip restored after his two-day suspension from Westminster earlier this year. Grady was found to have acted inappropriately toward a male SNP staff member, with the party now saying Grady had…