The government’s draft guidelines for getting businesses back to work have been criticised by unions for being vague and potentially dangerous for workers. But they have also highlighted the existing faults with our lockdown rules, which remain confusing and risky, writes New Statesman political correspondent Ailbhe Rea.
The current guidelines for businesses, which are non-binding, are some of the worst offenders, as is the guidance for the over-70s, which relies on an ambiguous distinction between the “clinically vulnerable” and the “clinically extremely vulnerable”.
“On both the conditions for precarious blue-collar workers and for the over-70s, the exposed confusion gives multiple pauses for thought,” she writes. “As journalists, have we paid insufficiently careful attention to how exactly the lockdown affects these groups that, in different ways, are both vulnerable and prone to being overlooked?”
You can read the full piece here.
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