Andy Burnham has urged the government to ‘go slow and go national’ in their approach to lifting national restrictions in England.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson will outline the government’s roadmap to exit lockdown on Monday (February 22), with England operating under tight COVID restrictions for almost all of 2021 so far.
Among the first sectors expected to reopen is education – with the PM already touting March 8 as a potential return date for school pupils. It is widely expected that non-essential retailers will open before gyms and the hospitality sector, with the return of crowds to sports venues and nightclubs much further down the list.
UK COVID rates have plummeted from a 7-day moving average of over 59,000 to less than 13,000 in the space of a month.
However, cases in Greater Manchester are falling much slower than in other areas.
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All ten boroughs have higher rates than the national average (133.2 cases per 100,000 people), with Tameside even recording a slight increase in the week to February 14.
And the region’s mayor is now warning the government to “move at the pace of the slowest” areas in order to avoid a stop-start approach to reopening the economy like in 2020.
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Speaking on BBC Radio 4 on Friday (February 19) morning, Burnham stated: “I would say [to the government] go carefully and go nationally – don’t return to tiers.
“Do not repeat the mistakes of 2020, where the national lockdown was lifted too early, certainly for parts of the north where the case rates were much higher.
“This year, we should proceed on a much more cautious basis – as I’m pleased to hear the Prime Minister saying himself – and that means looking at the places where case rates are highest before you take decisions to lift national lockdown.”
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Image: David Dixon via Geograph
Burnham said that hurrying out of lockdown in 2020 may have attributed to the rapid reintroduction of measures in Manchester – which have been in place in one form or another since July.
He stated: “When we lifted national lockdown last year, case rates in the north were much higher than they were in London, and I think that explains why parts of the north including Greater Manchester went back under restrictions.
“I don’t think the old tiers worked when we had the original strains. Now we have new strains, they simply would not be able to withstand the level at which these new strains can spread.”
The PM said he would be focusing on ‘data, not dates’ when creating the lockdown exit plan, saying the relaxation of measures would be performed in stages.
Johnson said the exit route would be “cautious and prudent”, designed in “such a way to be irreversible.”
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Around 16 million people in the country have now received their COVID-19 vaccination.
According to chairman of the UK Vaccines Taskforce Dr Clive Dix, the pace of the current rollout could see every adult receive their jab before September.
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95% of Mancs apparently want the city to be ‘cashless’, new study reveals
Emily Sergeant
An eye-opening new study has found that only 5% of Mancs still use cash as their preferred method of payment nowadays.
It comes as no surprise that cash is less of a ‘king’ nowadays than it used to be, but now a new report by global financial technology company SumUp has suggests that only 5% of people in Manchester prefer to pay with cash, while 59% choose debit and credit cards, so that leaves one question… is Manchester on its way to becoming a cashless city?
To discover how payment preferences are evolving, SumUp conducted a nationwide survey to gather insights from UK consumers about their payment habits.
The company was particularly intrigued to not only discover payment methods people prefer, but what their concerns around certain payment methods, alongside how they feel about businesses that don’t accept digital payments.
95% of Mancs apparently want the city to be ‘cashless’ / Credit: Mylo Kaye (via Unsplash) | Pexels
Firstly, before we go any further, it’s important to note that almost two thirds (63%) of Manchester residents said they have changed the way they make payments over the past year.
Unsurprisingly, debit and credit cards remain the top choice for the majority of Mancs, with over half (59%) saying it was their preferred method of payment, followed by mobile payment methods such as Apple Pay and Google Pay at 24% – which is likely thanks to their ease of use and the ability to have multiple cards on one device.
While a third (31%) of Mancs said that they ‘don’t mind’ cash and still opt to carry it for situations where digital payments aren’t an option, a growing number of people in the city are feel that digital payments are more favourable, with 25% thinking that businesses should adapt to modern payment methods and whilst 28% finding it ‘inconvenient’ when a business doesn’t accept digital payments.
A further 11% of people even say that cash-only businesses wouldn’t be an option they’d consider, and would actually avoid them wherever possible.
Only 5% use cash as their preferred method of payment / Credit: Rawpixel
When it comes to concerns around digital payment methods, where do Mancs stand then? Well, the survey found that a third (33%) of people are worried about their reliance on technology, especially being unable to pay if their phone dies, for example, while an additional 32% of people are concerned about security risks such as hacking, fraud, or stolen card details.
Among other things, 26% of survey respondents also said they worry about the privacy aspect of digital banking and the tracking your data.
“While debit and credit cards continue to dominate as the preferred payment method, it’s clear that cash is slowly declining in use, particularly among younger generations,” Corin Camenisch, who is the Marketing & Growth Lead at SumUp, commented on the report.
“Looking ahead, we can anticipate a rise in innovative payment methods like digital wallets, especially as younger consumers increasingly embrace the convenience and flexibility they offer.”
Featured Image – Pavel Danilyuk (via Pexels)
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Met Office predicts UK is set for ‘hotter than average’ summer
Emily Sergeant
The Met Office is predicting that the UK is set for a ‘hotter than average’ summer this year.
Fresh off-the-back of the news that 2025 is already the hottest spring on record, with a recorded 630 hours of sunshine from 1 March until 27 May, beating out the previous sunniest spring in 2020 by just four hours, the Met Office is now predicting that the UK is on the verge of a summer that’s ‘hotter than usual’.
According to its three-month outlook, the Met Office has predicted that it’s 2.3 times more-likely than ‘normal’ that it will be hot in the UK between 1 June and 31 August.
The average temperatures during those months are set to range from 10-17°C.
🌡️ ☀️ The UK has recorded its warmest and sunniest spring on record, according to provisional Met Office statistics.
Spring 2025 is now the 4th sunniest season overall for the UK, with only 3 summers sunnier since 1910.
Details in release below, or read this short thread 👇🧵
After it was revealed that this has also been the UK’s driest spring in more than a century, meteorologists are warning Brits that there could heatwave conditions could be reached at various times throughout the summer.
The release of the long-range forecast – which gives an indication of possible temperatures, rainfall, and wind speed over a period as a whole – comes after temperatures soared to 8°C (46F) above the average for this time of year this Saturday just gone (31 May).
It is important to note, however, that the Met Office thinks these predicted temperatures are similar to those in recent years, and it does not guarantee ‘prolonged’ hot weather.
The Met Office is predicting that the UK is set for ‘hotter than average’ summer this year / Credit: Mylo Kaye (via Unsplash)
The Met Office said in a statement: “While the current three-month outlook shows an increased chance of a hot summer, the temperature signals for this summer are similar to those for recent years and consistent with our warming climate.
“The increased chance of hotter than average temperatures is not a guarantee of prolonged hot weather or heatwaves, but it does mean that heatwave conditions could be reached at times.
“However, it’s important to bear in mind that an increased chance of hot conditions could also reflect a mix of hot and cool days, warm nights, or less extreme levels of warmth rather than continual heatwave conditions specifically.”
The Manc -
19th February 2021 
