Keir Starmer: Society cannot return to normal after coronavirus crisis

Sir Keir called on the PM to provide “clarity” on the plan he announced yesterday, and spoke about in Parliament today, as he said coronavirus was “the biggest threat this country has faced for a generation”.

He said Labour continued to support the lockdown but he said: “What we needed from the Prime Minister last night was clarity and reassurance.

“We needed to hear that nobody would be asked to go to work or send their children to school without it being safe to do so.

“We needed to know that the huge problems we’ve seen with protective equipment is over.”

He said the country needed reassurances on care homes, and testing, and seeing loved ones.

But he also said there were changes to be made after the pandemic stabilised.

He said: “After all this, all the sacrifice and the loss, we can’t go back to business as usual.

“We can’t go back to a society where we clap our carers once a week but where half of our care workers are paid less than the real living wage.

“We can’t go back to a society where we pay tribute to the heroes of the Second World War, but see our care homes as an afterthought.

“And we can’t go back to a country where we don’t invest in our public services, but expect our frontline workers to protect us.”

He added: “This crisis has brought out the resilience and the human spirit in all of us.

“We must go forward with a vision of a better society built on that resilience and built on that human spirit.”