Rishi Sunak – Protest violence ‘shocking and disgusting’
The Chancellor of the Exchequer led the batting for the government this morning. Recent weeks have seen considerable unrest playing out in the heart of British cities, and on Saturday central London played home to a ‘counter-demonstration’ prompted by the defacing of the Cenotaph and the statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square. Six people were hospitalised as a result and the Metropolitan police made more than 100 arrests. Speaking to Sophy Ridge, Sunak condemned the violence that had taken place:
RS: I think the scenes we saw yesterday were both shocking and disgusting. This has always been an open and tolerant country, and what we saw yesterday was not that, and I fully support the police in taking the action that they did.
We have a ‘safe environment’ for shopping
Tomorrow, non-essential retail will be able to open for the first time since the beginning of the lockdown. Sunak said that an extensive level of planning had been put in place to make sure that the gradual return to business as usual was a s safe as it could possibly be:
Government is looking at relaxing two metre rule
Currently, the government’s official advice is that people should remain at a distance of two metres apart to best reduce transmission of the virus. This distance is twice the amount recommended by the World Health Organisation, and there is considerable variation between countries. Citing Norway and Denmark as precedents, Sunak said that the government would be reviewing the benefits of cutting this distance before 4 July:
RS: It’s important that we look at it comprehensively… and that’s what we will do urgently… I can very much understand the impact, the positive impact it will have on businesses’ ability to open.
Every single day children are not at school ‘is a tragedy’
Sunak also declared that the forced closure of schools during the lockdown was a ‘tragedy’ for the education of young people. The government has now dropped its plans to reopen schools for all pupils before the end of term, but Sunak said it was a commitment to do so for the beginning of the next school year:
‘There is going to be hardship ahead’
Sunak went on to speak to Andrew Marr, who asked him about how the economy was going to fair over the near future. The Office for National Statistics has revealed that the UK economy was around 25 per cent smaller in April than in February, leading to fears of a prolonged recession and mass unemployment. Sunak said that easing the lockdown was the best way to avoid permanent damage:
RS: There is no way I can protect every single job and every single business through this. There is going to be hardship ahead… The next stage of [our] plan is to safely reopen our economy. The best way to protect those jobs, say for example… in retail or hospitality, is to reopen those sectors.
Two metre rule decision for ministers, not scientists
He also confirmed that the government’s Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty and the Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance would not have the power to override the government’s decision on relaxing the two metre rule, but stressed that their input was still critical:
AM: Would Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance have to agree before you relax the two metre rule?
RS: Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance throughout all of this have provided advice… I think people are comforted, and have confidence in those decisions if they know that we are taking advice from our scientists… People can hold us [politicians] accountable.
Nick Thomas-Symonds – PM must show he understands ‘hurt and anguish’
The Shadow Home Secretary has called on the Prime Minister to personally address the concerns that have been raised by protestors since the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis last month, and said to deliver a resultant plan of action:
SR: Do you agree with [that aim]?
NTS: I don’t want to defund the police, but what I do say is that there is a very deep anger out there. and it’s not for me to start lecturing people on how to express that anger.
Urination on PC memorial is ‘despicable behaviour’
Thomas-Symonds strongly condemned a man who was seen relieving himself against a memorial to the late PC Keith Palmer, who was fatally injured in the terror attack on the Houses of Parliament in 2017. Essex police are currently talking to a suspect in their custody:
NTS: I want to say a particular word about that awful scene of someone urinating next to PC Keith Palmer’s memorial. Absolutely despicable behaviour, and I hope that individual is identified and brought to justice.
David Lammy – Burying of BAME Covid-19 report is ‘a scandal’
The Shadow Justice Secretary has reprimanded the government after it was reported that a section of a Public Health England review into the impact of Covid-19 into ethnic minority communities has been censored. It is alleged that extensive third-party consultations and key recommendations into how to address the problems were removed from the review before publication, potentially to avoid embarrassing the government:
DL: It’s a scandal if one week Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock say ‘black lives matter’, and then we find out today that they’ve buried the part of the review that had the recommendations in it to do something about it… People are dying every day… It’s no wonder people are upset.
‘I hope’ no one is calling for Churchill statue to fall
And finally, Lammy told Marr that he did not believe that it was a widespread feeling among activists that statues of Winston Churchill should be toppled in the same way that happened to the Bristol statue of the slave trader Edward Colston:
DL: Is anyone seriously calling for Winston Churchill’s statue to come down? I hope not… Many great figures in history are also flawed, and we ought to be able to have that debate as well.
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