UK coronavirus: large areas of northern England put back in lockdown after rise in cases | Politics

Tracy Brabin, Labour MP for Batley and Spen in West Yorkshire, has said the way the new lockdown measures in the north of England had been announced was “deeply chaotic”.

She said: “The Government had said big announcements would be handled with the seriousness that they merit. To announce this sort of measure late at night on Twitter caused an awful lot of anxiety in my community. It’s a new low.”

Labour shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy, who is MP for Wigan, told Sky News: “Nobody is arguing that the Government shouldn’t move quickly where evidence exits that there has been a spike in Covid cases, and we have certainly seen that in Greater Manchester.

Some 5,000 racing are being allowed into the final day of the Goodwood festival on Saturday, where a team of seven hundreds staff will be on duty.

Ordinarily, some 25,000 would be attending, but there are still nerves about the numbers.

The Chichester Observer quotes Adam Waterworth, managing director of sport at Goodwood, who said: “Planning is going well for Saturday. It will be complicated but these are exceptional times.

Here’s a bit more on what’s planned, via ITV’s Richard Gaisford, where some of the replies are quite cutting to say the least:

The Chichester Observer reports that there will be ten different enclosures in place. The aim, added Waterworth, is “to give everyone who attends an enjoyable, if different, afternoon’s racing while making sure people’s health and safety is the top priority.”

Less than half of adults spending time with family and friends are fully respecting social distancing measures when they meet up, according to new survey data for the Office for National Statistics (ONS)

Almost three-quarters of adults polled by the ONS said they had socialised with others during the last seven days, with 50% welcoming family or friends into their homes.

Of the 1,150 people who reported socialising, 47% said they had always maintained social distancing, with this proportion rising to 70% of those aged 70 and over.

Three in 10 (31%) said they often followed the measures, 13% said they sometimes did, while 8% said they rarely or never followed social distancing.

The ONS analysed responses from 1,564 people in Britain between 22 and 26 July about their activities over the past week as part of its Opinions and Lifestyle Survey.

The cost of buying a house shot up by 4,500 in July as the property market recovered quicker than expected since the end of lockdown.

Prices were up 1.7% compared with last month, and 1.5% higher than the same period the year before, according to a closely watched survey.

Nationwide Building Society said that the average price of a home sold in the last month was 220,936, up from 216,403 in June.

Nationwide’s chief economist said that pent-up demand was likely coming through in July as lockdown eased.

“The bounce back in prices reflects the unexpectedly rapid recovery in housing market activity since the easing of lockdown restrictions,” Robert Gardner said.

The prime minister, Boris Johnson, and chief medical officer for England, Prof Chris Whitty, are to hold a press conference at noon.

A slew of England’s biggest businesses are set to defy the government’s push to get workers back into offices in August, a Guardian analysis shows, with many big businesses sticking to home working arrangements or delaying a partial return until September at the earliest.

Law firms, insurers, energy providers and tech firms are among those reacting cautiously to the change in government advice, which means from Saturday employers can decide whether staff can safely come back to offices. Some companies, such as Google and NatWest Group, are allowing workers to stay at home until 2021 amid signs of a permanent shift in working culture.

However, businesses that are trying to maintain or grow an office-based workforce are taking remarkable steps to keep staff safe. Banks are offering staff home coronavirus testing kits, conducting temperature checks in offices and in one case even stationing a nurse on reception as part of efforts to reassure workers it is safe to return to their desks.

Many major British employers contacted by the Guardian are not planning a wholesale return to offices from 1 August, when government advice on working from home changes in England.

Rail union officials have urged passengers to avoid crowding onto trains this weekend amid fears that unofficial Pride events and the hot weather may compromise social distancing.

The official Brighton Pride has been cancelled due to the virus pandemic, but the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) said a combination of unofficial events and other attractions on a hot weekend have sparked concerns among its members.

Assistant general secretary Mick Lynch said: “RMT has a strong history of supporting Brighton Pride and the organisers took the correct decision to postpone it this year in light of the pandemic to ensure everyone’s safety.

“However, we have been made aware that unofficial events have been organised this weekend which, combined with other attractions could lead to a surge of passengers that compromises social distancing and safety measures and it’s important that is not allowed to happen.”

Here’s a clip from BBC breakfast, via my northern colleague Josh Halliday, in which Matt Hancock appears to get it wrong on the rules about people in the north of England visiting other areas.