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Keir Starmer has accused the government of “reeling all over the place” in the face of the coronavirus crisis and making more than a dozen significant U-turns.
Intensifying his personal criticism of the prime minister, the Labor leader claimed that Boris Johnson has presided over “serial incompetence” while dealing with the pandemic.
“At the moment, one of my concerns is that the government really has no anchors,” Starmer said at a cooperative party virtual conference. “It rocks all over the place.”
He said: “I think now there are 13 or 14 U-turns. If it was one or two, I think a lot of people across the country, if the government made a mistake and then turned around, they’d say ‘well that’s fair, we’re dealing with a pandemic.’
“But when you have 12, 13 or 14 U-turns, the only thing that can be read is serial incompetence.”
As new restrictions are expected to be imposed in parts of England next week, Starmer criticized the business aid package presented by Chancellor Rishi Sunak on Friday.
“The scheme that was unveiled yesterday goes a little further, but there are still gaps in it,” he said. “I believe, however, that the government has lost sight of the guiding principle, and the guiding principle should be that restrictions are always accompanied by adequate financial support.
“If that had been the beginning at all times, we would not be in the mess that we are in right now.”
On the test-and-trace system, Starmer suggested that Johnson has been spouting rhetoric rather than making sure it works properly.
“Testing, tracking and isolating is critical,” he said. “The prime minister said we would have a world system, we didn’t need it, we just need an effective one that works. “Hit the world” is just Johnson’s rhetoric.
“Get a test quickly, get the result quickly, and then get to the contacts so that self-isolation works, that doesn’t work properly, which means thousands and thousands of people are walking today and should be in self-isolation. So that bit needs to be fixed. “
Last weekend, Starmer told the Observer that the prime minister was ruling “in hindsight.” He said, “You lunge forward, get in a car accident, look in your rearview mirror and say, ‘What’s that all about?
Johnson had faced questions about ordering people to return to work and the Eat Out to Help Out plan, which is seen to have contributed to the rise in infections.
