Neville: ‘Politicians out of their depth with virus crisis’
EX-RED BLASTS POLITICIANS FOR HANDLING OF VIRUS CRISIS
GARY Neville has launched a scathing attack on the country’s politicians over their handling of the coronavirus pandemic – saying they are ‘out of their depth’.
The former United defender-turned property developer was interviewed on Sky News yesterday about the crisis.
Neville is among a group of local business leaders spearheading United City – a new lobbying group set up with the aim of getting Greater Manchester ‘back on its feet’.
The campaigners want to encourage people to return to town and city centres again, arguing they are ‘critical to the success’ of the entire region.
Speaking to Sky’s Sophy Ridge, Neville compared the government’s success during the Covid-19 pandemic to his time as boss of Spanish club Valencia.
Neville was sacked after less than four months in 2016 after winning only three of 16 league games.
“I’ve been there where I was the ‘leader’ of a football club in Valencia and I was out my depth,” said Gary, from Bury.
“I was spinning... and I had to just jump off the roundabout because ultimately I was out of my depth and I didn’t know what I was doing.
“And that’s what I feel I’ve seen in the last eight months in the leadership in this country. They’re out of their depth.
“The countries who’ve dealt with this really well they’ve had definite and sure leaders. “
“People have been in control, composed, clear plans, clear communications strategy, aggressive testing, disciplined tracing, they’ve had maybe border controls in earlier, they’ve made decisions that have been unpopular at times but they’ve really handled the virus well.
“We’re still eight months later none the wiser as to how our long term looks, how are our short term looks, how our medium term looks how.
“In Manchester whether we’re coming out of a lockdown in two weeks, and if we come out of that lockdown, we don’t know whether we’re going to go back in it again two weeks later.”
And Neville also took aim at the Labour Party for ordering its MPs to abstain on last week’s vote about a strengthened tiered system of coronavirus restrictions, after party leader Sir Keir Starmer warned the plans pose a “significant” health risk.
“I was critical of the Labour Party earlier in the week because they’re there to protect the disadvantaged and the vulnerable, and the restrictions being in place to protect health is fine, but they know that the economic support isn’t in place aligned with those restrictions, which means you’ve got to take a position and be bold and go against it, you cannot abstain.”