Parliamentary reporter @TrinderMatt

LABOUR slammed the chaos engulfing Boris Johnson’s Tory government today, after a furious political backlash over exclusive rules allowing ministers to escape Covid-19 quarantine prompted another screeching U-turn.

The Prime Minister and Chancellor Rishi Sunak confirmed today that they would now self-isolate after coming into close contact with Health Secretary Sajid Javid, who tested positive for the virus on Saturday morning.

It came just hours after they initially said they would avoid quarantine by taking part in a pilot scheme involving daily testing instead of staying at home.

The PM claimed he had only “briefly considered” taking part in the initiative, but Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the Tories had been “busted yet again for thinking the rules that we are all following don’t apply to them.”

After the change of heart, Mr Sunak admitted similar concerns, tweeting: “I recognise that even the sense that the rules aren’t the same for everyone is wrong.”

Mr Johnson will now conduct meetings remotely at his Chequers country retreat until July 26.

It means three senior Cabinet ministers will spend Monday’s “freedom day,” which sees nearly all legal lockdown restrictions end, self-isolating as coronavirus cases surge past 50,000 a day in Britain.

Ministers said there were 20 public- and private-sector organisations involved in the pilot, including Network Rail, Transport for London, Heathrow airport and Border Force.

The scheme allows close contacts of positive cases to continue attending workplaces while taking daily rapid lateral flow tests. Participants are expected to avoid meeting social contacts for 10 days under the scheme. 

Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove also escaped quarantine rules by taking part in the pilot last month. 

The former Tory leadership candidate had been alerted by Test and Trace services to say he had come into contact with an infected person after recently returning from watching Chelsea in the Champions League final in Portugal. 

As well as meeting the PM and Mr Sunak in Downing Street on Friday, Mr Javid worked from his departmental office last week and was in the Commons chamber three times.

He is also known to have visited a care home in Streatham in south London on Tuesday, where all staff and residents are fully vaccinated.

More than half a million alerts telling people to self-isolate were sent by the NHS Covid-19 app in the first week of July, as schools, public services and unions warn of chaos with the virus ripping through the population once more.

Sir Keir said: “At a time when we need to maintain confidence in self-isolation, parents, workers and businesses will be wondering what on Earth is going on in Downing Street.

“The way the Prime Minister conducts himself creates chaos, makes for bad government and has deadly consequences for the British public.

“Yet again the Conservatives fixed the rules to benefit themselves, and only backtracked when they were found out. They robbed the bank, got caught and have now offered to give the money back.”

Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth argued that there will be “parents across the country who have struggled when their children have been sent home because they were in a bubble and had to isolate.

“This looks like one rule for Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak and something else for the rest of us.”

People are going to “wonder what on Earth is going on,” the Leicester South MP added.