This is how England reopens with pints pulled, shopping sprees and hair cuts

Crowds queued up outside shops, pubs started selling pints at midnight and hairdressers welcomed desperate customers on Monday as England started to reopen its economy after three months of lockdown.

After imposing the most onerous restrictions in Britain’s peacetime history, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the reopening was a “major step” towards freedom but urged people to behave responsibly as the coronavirus was still a threat.

Johnson, whose unruly hair style has become a trademark look, was one of thousands who flocked to hairdressers and barbers to have a hair cut on Monday, having waited since early January when the latest lockdown was introduced.

Some folk lined up at bars after midnight or in the morning to raise a pint with fellow revellers.

“It feels good to be back,” Matthew McGuinness, a 21-year-old student told Reuters in the large garden of Wetherspoon’s Fox on the Hill pub in south London. “We planned it last night to come here for a breakfast, get a drink.”

“I would not want to be working behind the bar here tonight. It’s gonna be ridiculous,” he said.

Later on Monday, at the busy Skylight rooftop bar in central London, drinker Matt Culhan said he had travelled almost 70 miles (113 km) from Ipswich in eastern England to enjoy the atmosphere.

“It’s a bit more of a vibe down here,” he said. “It’s been absolutely amazing. Everyone’s having a great time,” he said.

Getting people spending again is crucial for Britain’s recovery after official data showed that 2020 was the worst year for its economy in more than three centuries with a 9.8% decline in gross domestic product.

Johnson wants to hand back people their freedoms, but after being criticised for moving too slowly last year and then for unwinding restrictions too quickly, he has adopted a cautious easing of the latest lockdown.

With more than 127,000 fatalities, the United Kingdom has the fifth-highest death toll in the world from COVID-19.

As the sun rose, dozens of people queued up outside Primark in English cities such as Birmingham and outside JD Sports on Oxford Street in London, undeterred by the unseasonably cold weather.