Cabinet minister Michael Gove has criticised claims that Boris Johnson skipped five coronavirus planning meetings, labelling the claims 'grotesque'.
A report by the Sunday Times newspaper strongly criticises the government over its apparent lack of planning in the weeks and months before the country was placed into lockdown.
The report alleges that Mr Johnson did not attend five government COBRA meetings which discussed the coronavirus, as the virus spread across the world.
One Downing Street source told The Sunday Times: "There's no way you're at war if your PM isn't there.
"And what you learn about Boris is that he didn't chair meetings.
"He liked his country breaks. He didn't work weekends.
"It was like working for an old-fashioned chief executive at a local authority 20 years ago.
"There was a real sense that he didn't do urgent crisis planning. It was exactly like people feared he would be."
Michael Gove, who is Minister for the Cabinet Office, appeared on Sky News this morning to defend the Prime Minister and the government's response to the coronavirus outbreak.
When the quote was put to him by presenter Sophie Ridge, he said: "The point I made about the Sunday Times article having one or two points off beam, this is one of the wildest off beam.
"The idea that the Prime Minister skipped meetings that were vital to our coronavirus response is grotesque.
"The truth is that there are meetings in government, some of which are chaired by the health secretary, some of which are chaired by other ministers, but the Prime Minister took all the major decisions.
"No one, when you consider what the Prime Minister has been through recently, nobody can say the Prime Minister hasn't thrown his heart and soul into this."
Criticism of the government's preparation and response to the Covid-19 crisis has ramped up in recent days.
Earlier this week, a scientist leading scientist said her colleagues had argued for an earlier lockdown and more testing of patients but 'politicians refused to listen and act on advice'.
Writing in The Guardian, Helen Ward, professor of public health at Imperial College London, said Mr Johnson's government 'decided they knew better.'
And today leader of the opposition Sir Keir Starmer has accused the government of being 'too slow' to react to the crisis.
Writing in the Mail on Sunday, he said: "The government was too slow to enter the lockdown. It has been too slow to increase the number of people being tested.
"It has been too slow in getting NHS staff the critical equipment they need to keep them safe. We need to make sure these mistakes are not repeated.
"And this week has exposed how the government has been too slow to respond to the growing emergency in our social care services."
It comes after medical chiefs raised strong concerns that some hospitals could run out entirely of certain Personal Protective Equipment (PPE ) this weekend.
Yesterday, the government said more than 84 tons of essential PPE will arrive in the UK today.
At the daily Downing Street press conference, communities secretary Robert Jenrick said the shipment was due to arrive in the UK from Turkey on Sunday.
He said this shipment included 400,000 gowns – the supply of which NHS Providers, which represents hospital trusts, said on Saturday was now “critical”.
“Supply in some areas, particularly gowns and certain types of masks and aprons, is in short supply at the moment, and that must be an extremely anxious time for people working on the front line,” Mr Jenrick said.
“But they should be assured that we are doing everything we can to correct this issue, and to get them the equipment that they need.”
