Politically Speaking with Yvette Cooper MP: Prime Minister shouldn’t be taking the country for fools

Yvette Cooper MP writes: Even while laying her husband and consort to rest, the Queen followed the rules and showed leadership, out of respect for the country.

Boris Johnson and the people in Downing Street did the opposite and I fear they don’t have respect for anyone at all.

As one woman in Castleford said to me on Saturday: “I couldn’t see my mum when she was dying because we followed the rules, but the people who were making the rules were ignoring them and having parties, I can’t forgive Boris Johnson for that”.

The parties themselves would be bad enough. But the lying and smirking about it makes it worse. The prime minister should be showing leadership for the country. That’s his job.

If he got things wrong he should have admitted it straight away and apologised. Instead he told us the rules were followed, then that there weren’t any parties, and then when he finally admitted he was there said he didn’t realise it was a party at all

The trouble is that he still seems to think it is all a joke, and that the rules don’t apply to him and his friends.

But the joke just isn’t funny anymore. He shouldn’t be taking the country for fools.

https://www.wakefieldexpress.co.uk/news/politics/politically-speaking-with-yvette-cooper-people-deserve-better-from-the-prime-minister-3495212Round here people should be given some respect for the sacrifices everyone has made to get through the last two difficult years.

We’ve got through school closures, kids not being able to play out with their friends, families being separated, losing loved ones, jobs and businesses being hit.

Our communities have come through that together.

Our key workers have done an incredible job and especially our NHS which was overstretched and underfunded before we went into the Covid crisis and is still facing major pressure right now.

NHS and care staff have been heroes over the last two years, so have the volunteers who have kept supporting neighbours and friends.

What we need is a plan for the country going forward, not the shambles we are getting from the government.

For example, we need a serious plan on how we live with Covid so we don’t have to have any further lockdowns – including proper testing in place, proper sick pay for people and proper ventilation in schools.

Other countries put new ventilation into schools at the start of this pandemic and that has helped stop viruses spreading. Our schools are still waiting and that is ridiculous.

We also need proper support for our NHS to cope with the backlog of treatment and appointments. Many staff at Mid Yorkshire Trust are exhausted after the years they’ve had and we need far more recruitment and support for them.

People in our towns deserve better than we are getting from the government right now. At a time when everyone wants to get back to normal, the cost of living crisis is making that much harder, with energy bills and food prices going up and tax rises coming in April.

That’s why I’m calling for an immediate cut to VAT on energy bills to help everyone through. To deal with the cost of living crisis and to put right the damage from Covid, we need a serious government and practical plans not chaos and headline grabbing from a prime minister who just isn’t up to the job.