HM’s Government has faced heavy criticism over the apparent slow initial response to the coronavirus crisis with Prime Minister Boris Johnson being specifically targeted in a Sunday Times report detailing alleged failings from Mr Johnson’s administration, because of this many ministers have jumped to the defence of the PM.
The Government launched a defence of its initial response to the coronavirus crisis yesterday when Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove rejected the report and criticism as unfair.
Mr Gove, who is said to be part of the so-called “quad” of ministers steering the Government’s response while Mr Johnson recovers from his own battle with the disease, said the allegations by The Sunday Times were “off-beam.”
He confirmed Mr Johnson did not attend the Cobra meeting saying: “He didn’t. But then he wouldn’t. Because most Cobra meetings don’t have the Prime Minister attending them.”
He continued: “The idea that the Prime Minister skipped meetings that were vital to our response to the coronavirus, I think is grotesque. The Prime Minister took all the major decisions.
“Nobody can say that the Prime Minister wasn’t throwing heart and soul into fighting this virus. His leadership has been clear. He’s been inspirational at times.”
Last night the Health Department issued a detailed rebuttal, claiming the article contained “a series of falsehoods and errors and actively misrepresents the enormous amount of work which was going on in government at the earliest stages of the Coronavirus outbreak.”
The Cabinet Office department yesterday published a detailed rebuttal of claims in The Financial Times that the Government’s “muddled thinking” over its development of plans for a British ventilator, it claimed the report included “multiple inaccurate and misleading” claims about the UK’s work to procure and manufacture ventilators in response to the COVID-19 public health emergency.
The Department said: “This assertion neglects to mention that designing and manufacturing new devices was always only one pillar of the Government’s strategy,
“Non-specialist manufacturers were engaged alongside specialists because there was an urgent risk that NHS ventilator capacity would prove insufficient for the rapidly-growing demand, and that the other two pillars would not, by themselves, provide sufficient new ventilators to meet that growing demand.”
LBC radio presenter Maajid Nawaz looked deeper into the matter and thinks that the article is in fact “hatchet job” against the PM filled with lies to prop up Michael Gove as the next potential PM contender.
LISTEN: my FULL 13 mins dissection of that Sunday Times hatchet-job on PM Johnson. Those peddling this story should understand my critique *before* pushing its narrative, lest you begin to look very, very silly indeed. I value non-partisan truth, do you? https://t.co/g84t6YFoo7
— أبو عمّار (@MaajidNawaz) April 20, 2020
Editor-in-Chief | Carl D. Pearson has been involved in British politics and media from an early age, with the key knowledge of what it takes to run a news organisation for the 21st century. Mr Pearson, as Editor-in-chief, is responsible for supervising the daily tasks of publishing media and content to UNN’s website and various platforms.
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