Health Secretary Matt Hancock was one of the two big political guests of the day on the Andrew Marr show. The government is preparing to introduce a new system of fines and restrictions to combat a winter wave of the coronavirus pandemic. Andrew Marr asked about the government’s strategy if the rate of re-infection did not come down over future weeks and months:
MH: We face a choice… If everybody follows the rules, then we can avoid further national lockdowns, but we of course have to be prepared to take further action if that’s what’s necessary.
AM: So we might be facing a further national lockdown if people don’t obey the rules?
MH: That’s exactly right. I don’t rule it out.
UK still at Alert Level 3
Marr inquired as to where the UK now stood on the government’s five stage Covid alert scale (where 5 is the highest level of risk). The implementation of new restrictions appears to be at odds with the government’s definition of Level 3, which should see a ‘gradual relaxing of restrictions and social distancing measures’:
MH: We’re currently at Level 3, but obviously the clinicians look at this all of the time.
AM: … And yet you’re bringing in new restrictions. Why?
MH: We’re bringing in new restrictions because the number of cases is shooting up, and the measures we’re bringing in today are about supporting people to do the right thing… but also requiring… that people must self-isolate.
Reporting neighbours who break isolation ‘absolutely necessary’
Marr asked Hancock if he would be prepared to ‘dob someone in’ to enforce new lockdown rules:
AM: Would you call the police on a neighbour?
MH: Yes, and for the self isolation part, that is absolutely necessary, because that is how we break the chains of transmission… The public need to follow the rules.
Don’t get a test if you don’t have symptoms
Sophy Ridge also interviewed Hancock and asked him about the state of the government’s Covid testing capabilities, taking issue with Baroness Dido Harding’s comments that ‘nobody was expecting to see a really sizeable increase in demand’ for tests. She also raised the possibility that Hancock himself might have contributed to the problem of a lack of capacity:
MH: What nobody could have predicted that a whole load of people who didn’t have symptoms suddenly came forward…
SR: You encouraged people to come forward for testing too…
MH: If you have symptoms… or [doubts] about the symptoms. But not if you don’t… Now that demand is above capacity, it is very important that we prioritise people with symptoms.
Keir Starmer – I will support swift, decisive action on Covid-19
In the week which was supposed to see the Labour party converging on Liverpool for its annual conference, Sir Keir Starmer instead found himself in London, as the conference gets underway online. With Covid still firmly at the top of the agenda. Andrew Marr asked Starmer what we wanted to see from the government:
KS: Take swift action, do it in the next few days… if necessary local restrictions. Look at a national lockdown… I want the Prime Minister to set out today or tomorrow what action he proposes to take…
AM: And you’ll agree with it, whatever it is?
KS: I will agree with it.
Starmer: ‘I support’ new Covid fines
Sophy Ridge asked Starmer about the government’s plans to make it a legal obligation for the public to self-isolate if they test positive for Covid, or if they are contacted by the test and trace scheme. Those who fail to comply could be punished with fines of up to £10,000:
KS: I support that… There are a few people who are breaking the rules, and something has to be done about that, but that is not going to be a silver bullet.
Starmer: PM should apologise over testing
Starmer attacked the level of Covid testing, which currently stands at around 250,000 tests per day. He told Ridge that he thought an apology was required from Boris Johnson:
KS: If I was the Prime Minister I would apologise for the fact that testing is all over the place… I would make fixing testing my first priority, and I think the Prime Minister needs to reinstate the daily press briefings.
Ridge put Starmer’s call for an apology over testing straight to Hancock:
SR: Keir Starmer said that the Prime Minister should apologise for what’s happened with testing. Will you apologise?
MH: No, because I strongly and emphatically support my team, who have done an amazing job at building capacity to over a quarter of a million tests a day from almost nothing. I will endlessly defend my team.
Starmer – Boris Johnson ‘miss-sold’ his Brexit deal – or was just incompetent
Starmer went on to criticise the PM for his campaigning in last year’s general election where he promised that the government had an ‘oven ready deal’ post-Brexit that could be put into place with minimal trouble. Talks with the EU reached a standoff earlier this month after disagreements over customs between Northern Ireland and the Republic reappeared, highlighting that the deal was not as watertight as perhaps assumed:
KS: He has to answer the question ‘Did you know when you signed the agreement – which you now disagree with – what it said?’, and ‘If you did know what it said, why did you miss-sell it to the country?’ And if you didn’t know what you were signing, that raises even higher levels of incompetence than we’ve been talking about all summer.
Starmer: We’re ‘showing leadership in the Labour party now’
Ridge also asked Starmer about Labour’s new slogan, ‘A New Leadership’, which strongly hints at the new leader trying to put clear blue water between himself and what came before him. Without saying as much, Starmer appeared to confirm that this was so:
SR: Not very subtle is it?… What is the big difference?
KS: …Listening to people, taking difficult decisions, making it clear on things like anti-Semitism that it won’t be tolerated… Leadership was necessary on anti-Semitism, and that’s what we’re showing in the Labour party now.
Starmer: ‘I miss bacon sandwiches’
To round off the interview, Ridge unmasked Starmer as being a vegetarian. He revealed that the decision was a case of head before heart:
KS: I gave up as a matter of principle years ago… But I have to say I miss meat tremendously… Bacon sandwiches, chicken curry – you name it, almost everything! So this is hard work for me.
Red Len on Starmer:
Ridge sought Unite leader Len McCluskey’s opinion of Keir Starmer. McCluskey, who was a close supporter of Jeremy Corbyn, gave Starmer his qualified support:
SR: Are you worried that he is moving too far from… the radical Corbyn agenda?
LM: No, I’m not worried at the moment… but of course we will review the situation… There is a real will to support him from all wings of the Labour party… And my belief is that if he sticks to the kind of progressive, ambitious alternatives… that have been developed over the last five years, then I think he will be our next Prime Minister.
SR: And if he doesn’t?
LM: I think he will be in trouble.
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