'By God he's doing it badly': Chesterfield MP slams Boris Johnson for 'costing lives and livelihoods' with coronavirus lockdown delay

Toby Perkins said Mr Johnson had a difficult job, but ‘by God he’s doing it badly’ in a debate in Parliament yesterday.

Addressing the Prime Minister and his announcement of a second national lockdown starting on Thursday, the Labour MP said: “He said a moment ago that he’s having to balance lives and livelihoods, but this delay is costing lives and livelihoods.

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"Businesses will fold, people will lose their jobs, the strain on our NHS will be greater, because he failed to take the advice of SAGE scientists.”

Mr Perkins added: “Will he at least now acknowledge the failure of his policy and start getting in front of this business, rather than always playing catch up and costing lives and livelihoods.”

Mr Johnson replied to Mr Perkins that he ‘made no apology’ for resisting a national lockdown as long as he did, but an upsurge in the virus had made country-wide measures necessary.

He said there were ‘plenty of scientists and plenty of medical advisers who were absolutely categorical that a local and regional approach was common sense and rational’.

The Prime Minister said Labour had supported the Government at the time, and insisted the country now wanted to see politicians coming together to ‘agree on the measures’ going forward.

Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, had called for a ‘circuit break’ lockdown to coincide with the school half-term break.

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