Politics

PMQs becomes lawyer vs liar as forensic Starmer exposes Bojo’s bluffs

Prime Minister Questions became a case of lawyer vs liar today after Keir Starmer exposed Boris Johnson’s blatant bluffs.

The Labour Party leader responded to the PM’s statement on Sunday by using the government’s own guidelines to ask if they were too slow to protect those in care homes.

He said:

“Mr Speaker, in a speech on Sunday, the prime minister said that we need to rapidly reverse the awful epidemic in our care homes. But earlier this year and until the 12 March the government’s own official advice was, and I’m quoting from it, ‘it remains very unlikely that people receiving care in a care home will become infected.’

“Yesterday’s ONS figures show that at least 40 per cent of all deaths from Covid-19 were in care homes. Does the prime minister accept that the government was too slow to protect people in care homes?”

In response Johnson said:

“No, Mr Speaker and it wasn’t true that the advice said that and actually, we brought the lockdown in care homes ahead of the general lockdown and what we’ve seen is a concerted action plan to tackle what is unquestionably an appalling epidemic.”

Unfortunately for the prime minister, this is exactly what the guidance said. Here is the webpage to prove it.

Thankfully it didn’t go unnoticed:

Starmer later wrote to the PM, reminding him that “at a time of national crisis, it is more important than ever that Government ministers are accurate in the information they give.”

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Jack Peat

Jack is a business and economics journalist and the founder of The London Economic (TLE). He has contributed articles to VICE, Huffington Post and Independent and is a published author. Jack read History at the University of Wales, Bangor and has a Masters in Journalism from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

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