Gove on the defensive over handling of crisis

THE UK Government went on the defensive yesterday as Michael Gove, pictured, dismissed fresh criticism of the Prime Minister over his handling of the coronavirus crisis as “grotesque”.

Mr Gove – Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster – confirmed Boris Johnson had not attended five meetings of the key Government Cobra committee in the build-up to the coronavirus outbreak.

But Mr Gove insisted criticism of Boris Johnson over this was “grotesque”.

He also poured cold water on suggestions a “traffic light” strategy is about to be brought in in England which would see some schools and businesses over the border allowed to reopen in midMay.

Mr Gove told BBC One’s The Andrew Marr Show: “We have stressed that the reporting in [Sunday’s] newspapers that schools will reopen on May 11, that is not true, we have not made that decision.”

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said ministers do not want to “take steps too early” despite the rate of infection appearing “to be flattening”.

In Wales, Education Minister Kirsty Williams last week confirmed schools here would remain closed after the Easter holidays, which ended yesterday. She said she would only begin to reopen schools when experts advised it was safe to do so.

Ms Williams added that a change to the policy was “not imminent”.

Mr Gove’s comments followed an investigation in The Sunday Times in which a Whitehall source claimed the Government “missed the boat on testing and PPE” (personal protective equipment) and “just watched” as the death toll mounted in Wuhan, China.

The virus has now claimed the lives of more than two million people worldwide, including 15,464 in hospitals in the UK, according to latest figures.

Today, the UK will enter its fifth week in lockdown, with questions marks over the timescale for the relaxation of measures that have shut schools and businesses, scaled back transport and closed and parks and public spaces closed as Britons are advised to pay heed to social distancing guidelines.

A wide-ranging report in The Sunday Times said the Prime Minister missed five meetings of the key Cobra committee in the run-up to the outbreak and stated a number of opportunities were missed by the Government in January, February and March to try and lessen the impact of the gathering crisis.

Mr Gove told Sky News’s Sophy Ridge: “The idea that the Prime Minister skipped meetings that were vital to our response to the coronavirus, I think is grotesque.”

The long-time ally of Mr Johnson later told BBC One’s The Andrew Marr Show that “most Cobra meetings don’t have the Prime Minister attending them”.

Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth later argued Mr Gove’s line that one or two aspects of The Sunday Times story were “off beam” is “possibly the weakest rebuttal of a detailed expose in British political history”.

He told Ridge on Sunday: “There are serious questions as to why the Prime Minister skipped five Cobra meetings throughout February, when the whole world could see how serious this was becoming.

“And we know that serious mistakes have been made, we know that our front-line NHS staff don’t have the PPE, that they’ve been told this weekend that they won’t necessarily have the gowns which are vital to keep them safe.

“We know that the ventilators that many hospitals have received are the wrong types of ventilators and there are big questions as to whether we went into this lockdown too slowly, and now we hear the Prime Minister missed five meetings at the start of this outbreak.

“It suggests that early on he was missing in action.”