Keir Starmer has said the government’s delay in calling a second coronavirus lockdown in England will cost lives and singled out Rishi Sunak for blame, saying the UK chancellor’s “name is all over” the decision to reject earlier tough measures. It followed the publication of documents that showed that the government’s scientific advisers had called for such a lockdown in September. “Forty days later, when [the PM] finally decided to announce a longer, four-week national lockdown, those figures had increased to 326 deaths a day, and 22,000 Covid cases. That is the human cost of the government’s inaction,” Starmer said. He said: “One of the things I’ve learned from this crisis is that it exposes leadership like nothing else.

Source: The Guardian November 02, 2020 13:07 UTC