Downing Street ‘forced’ to deny claims that Johnson was to quit
7942 Mins Read
Downing Street has been forced to deny claims that Boris Johnson could quit as prime minister within six months because of ongoing health problems due to coronavirus, The Independent reports.
Earlier in the day, Johnson made an announcement about the return to schools in the UK.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said:
I have previously spoken about the moral duty to reopen schools to all pupils safely, and I would like to thank the school staff who have spent the summer months making classrooms Covid-secure in preparation for a full return in September.
We have always been guided by our scientific and medical experts, and we now know far more about coronavirus than we did earlier this year.
As the Chief Medical Officer has said, the risk of contracting Covid-19 in school is very small and it is far more damaging for a child’s development and their health and well-being to be away from school any longer.
This is why it’s vitally important that we get our children back into the classroom to learn and to be with their friends. Nothing will have a greater effect on the life chances of our children than returning to school.
he father-in-law of Mr Johnson’s top aide Dominic Cummings was reported to have told a holidaymaker that Mr Johnson was still struggling badly with the after-effects of the Covid-19 infection which saw him taken into intensive care in April. In a video message after his discharge, a visibly under-the-weather PM said there was “no question” the NHS had saved his life after a period when things “could have gone either way”.
According to The Times, Sir Humphry Wakefield compared the PM to a horse with a damaged fetlock, telling Anna Silverman, a visitor to his Chillingham Castle home in Northumberland: “If you put a horse back to work when it’s injured, it will never recover.”
But a Number 10 source dismissed as “total nonsense” his suggestion that the impact of the infection will force the PM to step down early.
The report came as Mr Johnson faced demands to step up support for those suffering from so-called “long Covid”, who are suffering long-term debilitating effects weeks or months after apparently beating their initial coronavirus infection.
