No, Parliament has NOT taken back control of lockdown measures

Parliament may be able to vote on national lockdowns (‘wherever possible’), but it has no power when it comes to ‘local lockdowns’, which currently affect a quarter of all Brits. So much for ‘take back control’.

The Daily Telegraph today gleefully reports that ‘Johnson’s own MPs [have taken] back control of the [lockdown] rules’. This comes both too late and in half measure.

Parliament will, from now, be able to vote on any further lockdown restrictions that affect all of England or the UK ‘wherever possible’. The concession - if we can call it that - has not, however, been granted to the imposing of ‘local lockdown’ restrictions, which are still privy to King Boris’s executive powers exclusively.

This might be a step in the right direction, but there is, as yet, no cause for celebration - especially from those worried by the Government’s increasingly reckless use of its powers.

With around a quarter of the population under some form of ‘local lockdown’, Parliament’s powers - and, by extension, that of the British people - remain majorly limited. So much for ‘take back control’.