london british prime minister boris johnson and finance minister rishi sunak will both selfisolate in line with national guidance abandoning heavily criticised plans to take part in a pilot scheme that would have allowed them to continue workingthe uturn comes a day after health minister sajid javid said he had tested positive for covid19 and at a time when the governments coronavirus response is under intense scrutinyalmost all remaining restrictions in england will be lifted on monday despite a surge in infections as ministers put their faith in the advanced vaccine programmecases are rising by more than 50000 a day and hundreds of thousands of britons are being asked to self isolate for 10 days causing havoc for employers and parents prompting train cancellations and forcing some businesses to close their doorsthe government announced at 0700 gmt that johnson and sunak had been exposed to a person with covid19 and would take part in a trial scheme that allowed them to keep working instead of selfisolatingbut less than three hours later that decision had been reversed after a flurry of criticism from voters political opponents and business ownerswe did look briefly at the idea of us taking part in the pilot scheme but i think its far more important that everybody sticks to the same rules johnson said in a video message from his country residence where he will isolate until july 26opposition politicians had said it was hypocritical for johnson and sunak to have tried to exempt themselves from some of the rulesboris johnson and rishi sunak have been busted yet again for thinking the rules that we are all following dont apply to them said labour party leader keir starmersunak also acknowledged the backlash over their initial decisioni recognise that even the sense that the rules arent the same for everyone is wrong he said on twitterthe governments handling of the pandemic has been dogged with episodes that have damaged public trust most recently when thenhealth minister matt hancock was pictured kissing an adviser in breach of social distancing regulations he later resignedhousing minister robert jenrick confirmed that the government would go ahead with its freedom day plan on monday removing the requirement to wear face masks lifting limits on social gatherings and allowing highrisk businesses to reopenjohnson used his video message to plead with the public to take a cautious approach to the change of rulesplease please please be cautious he saidgo forward tomorrow into the next step with all the right prudence and respect for other people for the risks that the disease continues to present and above all please please please when youre asked to get that second jab please come forward and do itministers argue that the vaccination programme under which 878 of the adult population has had one vaccine and 678 have been double vaccinated has largely broken the link between cases and mortalitythe last time we had cases at the level we do today the number of people dying from