Why everybody’s talking about the cabinet split over a circuit breaker lockdown

Boris Johnson planning for restrictions as Rishi Sunak leads calls to protect the economy

Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak leave Downing Street to attend a meeting of the cabinet.
Boris Johnson planning for restrictions as Rishi Sunak leads calls to protect the economy
(Image credit: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

The last time Boris Johnson fell out with his chancellor, Rishi Sunak ended up replacing his political mentor Sajid Javid in 11 Downing Street.

But now Sunak is causing a headache for the prime minister, as Johnson considers imposing some form of circuit breaker lockdown in a bid to curb rising Covid infections.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us

Joe Evans is the world news editor at TheWeek.co.uk. He joined the team in 2019 and held roles including deputy news editor and acting news editor before moving into his current position in early 2021. He is a regular panellist on The Week Unwrapped podcast, discussing politics and foreign affairs. 

Before joining The Week, he worked as a freelance journalist covering the UK and Ireland for German newspapers and magazines. A series of features on Brexit and the Irish border got him nominated for the Hostwriter Prize in 2019. Prior to settling down in London, he lived and worked in Cambodia, where he ran communications for a non-governmental organisation and worked as a journalist covering Southeast Asia. He has a master’s degree in journalism from City, University of London, and before that studied English Literature at the University of Manchester.