Regen chief slams PM over handling of virus

ALABOUR councillor has launched a blistering attack on the government for their handling of the current coronavirus situation.

Coun for Smallbridge and Firgove has condemned Prime Minister Boris Johnson, saying he has “fallen well short of expectations” and that his “jovial nature is not suited to this type of situation.”

Coun Blundell continued: “What breaks my heart is that viable business and their workers will go to the wall because of government inaction and poor communication.

“As part of my role as cabinet member for regeneration in Rochdale, I have had several conversations with bars and restaurants who are

●●Councillor John Blundell, council cabinet member for regeneration, business, skills and employment says Prime Minister Boris Johnson has ‘fallen well short of expectations’ in his handling of the coronavirus crisis frightened future.”

Restaurants, cafes, and bars were closed nationwide, plus gyms and leisure centres, from Friday,

Coun Blundell has also slammed Johnson for advising people away for the from pubs and clubs, before their closure, saying he “buried thousands of businesses and made hundreds of thousands unemployed.”

He continued that businesses should have been told to close earlier, so people would know where they stand. He said: “I personally would have used the cash their staff will be claiming in Universal Credit to give to businesses straight away; no loans but a serious cash injection.

“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know the government’s indecision has left businesses and workers in limbo.”

Johnson justified his advice over social settings by saying he had not employed this measure earlier because “we are asking people to do something that is difficult and disruptive of their lives” adding that it was a “draconian measure.”

Blundell rejects this, saying: “A cynical person would think this was because the government wants to push the onus of dismissing staff on to business owners rather than dealing with the issue directly as it is something people wouldn’t forget when they are next stood at the ballot box.” He went on to criticise their “indecision and poor communication” over the closure of the schools.

The PM moved to shut the schools on Friday, March 20, after he announced a series of new key measures to target the number of coronavirus cases after scientific modelling showed the UK was on course for a “catastrophic epidemic”.

Coun Blundell went on to say: “Members and officers of councils intimately know businesses in their borough and expecting centralised government departments to react to this threat effectively (remotely from London) is a bad idea. In normal times, the roll out of Universal Credit showed that the system can seize up and handing out emergency loans through this system to people who will fall by the wayside, through no fault of their own, is immoral.”

He added that the bailout packages Johnson offers are “meagre” and “offering £1.6bn to social care services delivered by local authorities is a smack in the face given this cash under normal circumstances would be considered a sticking plaster. Most services were already in crisis due to a decade of cuts.”

He continued: “This pandemic is going to reveal that the policies of the past 10 years have done significant damage to the resiliency of our local social and economic systems.

“Services that have been pushed to the brink, whose infrastructure has not been properly invested in for years, are about to be clobbered and the cracks will show. He noted that the government have not reacted ‘as quickly as we could have given other leaders have done much more much sooner’.

He praised key workers saying they are “nothing less than heroic”.

The government had moved into the delay phase in an attempt to keep services functioning as normal for as long as possible.

Coun Blundell said: “Now is the time we need that Churchillian figure who can push us to our limit, take brutal decisions, yet convince us it is for the greater good. “It is more apparent than ever this is not Boris Johnson.”