Give us ‘clarity and reassurance’ over recovery, Starmer urges PM
BORIS JOHNSON has been met with a call for “clarity and reassurance” by Labour after he announced the Government’s strategy for recovery from coronavirus.
Following an address to the nation on Sunday, the Prime Minister appeared in the House of Commons yesterday to expand on his plans and be questioned by MPs.
But Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the country needs “clarity” from the Government, a message reiterated in a televised broadcast last night.
Sir Keir said: “What the country needs at this time is clarity and reassurance and at the moment both are in pretty short supply and at the heart of the problem it seems is that the Prime Minister made a statement last night before the plan was written, or at least finalised.”
Shadow Cabinet Office Minister and Leeds West MP Rachel Reeves added that it is “deeply worrying” that people were encouraged to return to work with no guidelines published on safety in the workplace.
She said the fact that the UK has the highest death toll in Europe should require “greater care, not greater risks”.
And she said: “We all want the Government to get this right, but frankly the Government’s response in the last 24 hours has been a shambles.”
She said the PM’s statement “obscured as much as it revealed.”
It comes after the Government was criticised after it outlined its new “stay alert” message, while the first ministers of Scotland and Wales, Nicola Sturgeon and Mark Drakeford, urged the public to stick with the “stay at home” message.
The SNP’s Westminster leader Ian Blackford said that the UK Government had not shared the new “stay alert” slogan with the devolved administrations and that they learned of the change “in the Sunday newspapers”.
But Mr Johnson said: “I think most people actually understand where we are in fighting this disease.
“Most people looking at the reality, the practical reality of the advice that we are giving today, can see that overall there is far, far more that united the UK than divides it.”
He said “accentuating the divisions” between UK governments “is not going to be the approach of this Government”.
While Sir Keir added: “There’s not consensus either on messaging now or on policy between the UK Government and those in Wales, Scotland and Northern
Ireland, not something I know he (Boris Johnson) wanted to see but now we’re in that position, raises serious concerns, with a real danger of divergence.”
Mr Johnson replied that people had followed the stay at home advice “more thoroughly than many other populations around the world”.
Wales’s First Minister earlier warned people living in England against travelling into Wales to exercise.
Mark Drakeford said that “in Wales it is Welsh law that applies” following concerns that traffic coming over the border from England could increase amid Mr Johnson’s relaxed travel restrictions.
He said: “In Wales, it is Welsh law that applies.
“Travelling to Wales to exercise is not to exercise locally. We will use whatever means are available to convey this message.”