Is the dispute between Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham and the government all about money? Certainly not. But local MPs, both Labour and Conservative, were indeed demanding further financial support for those who might be laid off as a result of the government's Tier 3 restrictions. And there is no question that the support offered - and only to some workers - isn’t enough. In fact everywhere - not just in the North West - the bosses have opened the redundancy floodgates, using Covid as their excuse, pushing workers into destitution.
It's also clear that Johnson's local restrictions won't halt a 2nd wave. No town or region is an island, "entire unto itself". There are millions of connections between them. And right from the start, unlike in China, the most important connections between places were never severed, i.e., trains and buses, which transport humans who carry the virus, close together, in poorly ventilated, closed spaces!
In fact, the government's, 3-Tier policy is as close to a policy of “do nothing” as it feels it can get away with. Even its tame SAGE committee recommended a national lock-down. But of course, a national lock-down now would go against the interests of "business" and especially big companies like Ford or BMW (not affected under Tier 3!), which are currently pushing production in order to stockpile, in case of Johnson's no-deal Brexit-imposed tariffs.
Ministers hypocritically pointed to the 80% occupancy of Manchester's intensive care beds as evidence that their Tier 3 measures were "needed". But this occupancy is no greater than last year at this time: the NHS works close to capacity every winter, which in itself is a serious problem!
Anyway, the government still doesn't have an accurate picture of the rate of spread of the virus. Its Test&Trace, a prerequisite for its control, is still broken. While it reports 18,000 cases/day (since 1 October), the latest ONS figures estimate 27,000. Due to the time lag, the number of cases could be even greater. But Test&Trace is incapable of saying where those cases are. It currently reaches only 63% of contacts - the lowest number since its launch. And this, despite costing £12bn and paying consultants £7,000/day!
To cover up this Test&Trace scandal, the government is now calling in the cops: they're asked to issue fines of £1,000 - £10,000 to those who haven't isolated properly! Yes, Johnson's latest approach is to try to shift the blame for his policy failures onto others - whether it be the population at large, or local councils like Manchester.