In a crisis like this who is more valuable to our society?
The manager of a hedge fund? Or the minimum wage person,
who cleans the kitchens, the wards, the toilets in care homes?
So let's never ever again allow any home secretary to use the words:
"People with low skills coming to the United Kingdom"
Thank you, to all those people that have worked so hard in our public sector.
Thank you, to all those migrant workers that have kept us clean and safe,
during this whole process and let's start treating people with respect.
The virus was obviously going to spread at some point.
The initial response is the important one, in Britain the government decided,
that they would go with a 'herd immunity' strategy:
"You could sort of take it on the chin,
take it all in one go and allow the disease to move through the population"
A very crude way of dealing with medicines in the 21st century.
And when the World Health Organisation was very clearly saying:
"Test, test, test."
When we met Boris Johnson he was proudly telling me,
there were 5000 tests a day going on,
and at that point 40,000 people had been tested, this was the middle of March,
and I pointed out there were 400,000 people working in the NHS,
it was going to take quite a while before you even reach NHS staff,
never mind the many other people,
who could be open to infection from coronavirus.
The idea of reusing PPE is utterly absurd.
The health secretary says:
"Treat PPE like the precious resource that it is,
not using more than is needed"
Staff are using too much? No, they use what is necessary.
And if you reuse it, it must be fairly obvious what the dangers of that are.
The idea that we haven't got enough of them is absurd,
it's a lack of planning by government and a lack of taking the opportunity.
We were having these discussions with them a few weeks ago,
saying well actually there is a massive manufacturing facility in Britain.
Let's use the creativity and the determination of people,
to help out in this.
(Sigh) The badge, wow.
You'd have thought with all this going on the genius of a minister,
that says the most important thing is to design a badge.
I think they'd be much happier knowing they were gonna get full PPE equipment,
they would get the face mask and they wouldn't have to be told this,
nonsense about reusing stuff.
The World Health Organisation has consistently pointed out,
the dangers of health inequality across the world.
If you're a country that's heavily indebted,
people living in often overcrowded accommodation,
with very limited access to health services,
and almost no access to a free health service,
then clearly it is much worse.
There's been a big proposal on a debt right off which is important,
but it's also about properly funding the World Health Organisation.
And the President of the United States proposal in the midst of all this:
"Today I'm instructing my administration to halt funding of the WHO"
It's underfunded already!
I think there's an agenda here that needs to be debated,
if we have world institutions, World Bank, IMF and so on.
"I'm often asked what does the IMF really do"
Predicating their support of development aid in countries on the basis,
of treating health as a commodity rather than a right then clearly,
health care is not going to be available to all those that need it.
I'm very proud of the principle of our National Health Service,
which is free at the point of need for everybody.
So when the Prime Minister himself is infected with it,
is treated in an NHS hospital alongside people,
who come from anywhere in that part of London.
I think that's a sign of the effectiveness and power of our NHS.
I do support so much of what the World Health Organisation is trying to do,
to bring universal free health care to people all around the world.
Surely all the medical advances, all the scientific advances,
all the research should be available for the good of all,
not just the good of those that can afford to pay for it.
I would be very cautious about getting into too much discussion,
of an exit strategy.
We haven't dealt with coronavirus yet.
What I would say is that the economic response in the future,
cannot be a repeat of what happened after the financial crisis of 2008.
When the received wisdom was that we had to go into a period of austerity,
to slash public spending this time let's not do that.
Let's invest for the future and recognise,
our health is dependent on the health of everybody else.
The United States has learned this the hard way,
look at the death rates in New York,
look at the death rates amongst the poorest people,
the black and minority ethnic communities all across the USA,
and you begin to see what inequality means to people.
There's been some quite horrible examples of racist language used:
"Chinese virus"
A virus could happen anywhere,
Ebola was first discovered in West Africa it's named after a river,
coronavirus came apparently from a live animal market in China,
a virus can grow anywhere it can mutate anywhere.
Historically there was what termed Spanish flu in the 1920s,
didn't in fact come from Spain at all it came from some where in Central Europe,
as a result probably of the devastation of the First World War,
and the contagion that came from that.
And so let's just learn the lesson and apply the science,
that can help to give us us longer stronger and healthier lives.
We've all got power, the power of our voice,
the power to listen, the power to see the power to act.
Public pressure led to a lockdown,
the football authorities took action ahead of the government,
they recognised that 50,000 people together in a stadium clearly brings about a risk.
And so I don't we should ever underestimate our own power in this.
In a strange kind of way being locked down has strengthened our communities,
those beautiful pictures in Spain and Italy,
where people are doing coordinated community singing from their balconies.
In my own street outside every Thursday evening at 8 o'clock.
We come out and we all applaud the NHS and care workers,
and it's the sort of thing that brings the whole community together.
We could actually come out of this thing with all the tragedies,
as a stronger society and a stronger community.
What an incredible number of volunteers responding to help in food banks.
Those that are helping each other knowing that some people,
are going through the most terrible, terrible mental health crises at the present time.
reach act and support each other.
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