Image: ComposedPix, via Shutterstock
Keir Starmer says ‘serious mistakes have been made’ in government response to the virus
Keir Starmer has called for “openness and transparency” during the coronavirus crisis as he is elected leader of the Labour Party.
The Holborn and St Pancras MP won 56.2 per cent of the vote, with Ashton-under-Lyne MP and former shadow education secretary Angela Rayner winning 52.6 per cent of the votes for the deputy leader, the party announced on 4 April.
Starmer had the backing of Scientists for Labour, a socialist society representing scientists within the Labour Party.
Reflecting on the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic in an article in the Sunday Times on 5 April, Starmer said “serious mistakes have been made”.
“The public is placing enormous trust in the government at the moment: it is vital that trust is met with openness and transparency about those mistakes and the decisions that have been made,” he said.
He urged the government to fulfil its 2 April promise to increase coronavirus tests to 100,000 a day by the end of the month and to build a “comprehensive national vaccine programme so that the minute a vaccine becomes available we can begin to protect the entire population”.
“That means building vaccination centres in towns and cities across the country, working with world leaders to guarantee global supply and ensuring key workers and the most vulnerable are at the front of the queue,” he said.
Starmer also urged the government to address shortages in personal protective equipment in the NHS and care sector and to be “clear about their exist strategy from the measures to defeat coronavirus and publish it”.
“We should know what that exit strategy is, when the restrictions might be lifted and what the plan is for economic recovery to protect those who have been hardest hit.”
Meanwhile, Carolyn Fairbairn, director-general of the Confederation of British Industry, said Starmer had the group’s “full support to help develop policies that create and share prosperity across the UK”.
“This is a time like no other for Labour and business to work in partnership to help our country survive the immense challenge of this pandemic, and move beyond it to revive our economy and tackle inequality,” she said in a statement on 4 April.
Ben Fernando, of Scientists for Labour, congratulated Starmer and Rayner on their new positions.
“It is vital in this time of medical and scientific emergency, that expert scientific advice is at the heart of Labour’s decision-making processes,” he said. “For this reason, we re-iterate our call for them to re-establish a cabinet-level shadow minister for science, to ensure that we as an opposition play our part in tackling Covid-19 as effectively as possible.”