Schools reopening: who is now in charge? – The Yorkshire Post says

Yet it is also important that they’re posed and answers sought from the Government if the forthcoming half-term holiday is to be fully utilised to prepare for as many schools as possible to reopen from next month.

The buck stops with the Prime Minister – he did not even involve the Education Secretary in the decision to shut schools after just one day last term. He then over-rode Mr Williamson who apparently wanted pupils back in classrooms immediately after half-term without waiting for the Government’s wider lockdown review.

However, while Mr Johnson’s new-found caution is understandable in the wake of Covid’s second wave he has said, repeatedly, that schools are a priority and headteachers are exercised by the absence of any plan to vaccinate school staff once the first four priority groups have received their first jabs by the February 15 target date.

This is compounded by the loss of confidence in Mr Williamson that led The Yorkshire Post, and then others, to demand his resignation so that a fresh start can be made. In a new poll of Tory activists who are normally loyal to the Government, Mr Williamson has accrued a rating of minus 48.4 per cent – a negative score not witnessed since Chris Grayling was running the railways.

And this comes back to the original questions. If the PM has no confidence in his Education Secretary and keeps over-ruling him, he needs to task a new minister with drawing up a plan to vaccinate staff, and putting other measures in place, so schools can reopen as soon as practicable. Teachers, families and children deserve nothing less; they’ve already suffered enough.