Sir Keir Starmer today blasted the “arrogant” Government for its “Whitehall knows best” attitude.
The Labour leader warned that ministers must get a grip of the pandemic before it “spirals out of control”.
In an opinion piece for the Telegraph, he said he vowed to be a “constructive opposition” but warned it would only work if the Government is “competent” and learns from its mistakes.
He said: “At the moment the Government is operating under the misguided, arrogant and counterproductive view that ‘Whitehall knows best’, that decisions can be made behind closed doors, without any real consultation or by even picking up the phone to those on the frontline.”
However, a senior government source hit back, telling Playbook: “Keir Starmer should be supporting measures to protect the NHS and save lives instead of playing politics in the middle of a global pandemic.”
In the piece, Sir Keir said people were not “asking for miracles” and just wanted to know that Boris Johnson had a plan and strategy in place.
He also hit out at Number 10 for the number of leaks to journalists in recent days which revealed potential new lockdown measures for the north as well as shutting down pubs and restaurants within days.
Sir Keir added: “It was an act of gross irresponsibility for anonymous Number 10 sources to tell a few newspapers on Thursday about plans to impose further restrictions on millions of people, without any detail, without any consultation and without any statement from the Prime Minister.”
This morning, business minister Nadhim Zahawi denied that any of his colleagues were leaking information to the press.
He told Sky news: “I can promise you that this minister – or no minister - would actually instruct any member of staff to go out and actually brief this stuff out.”
