Starmer calls for ‘circuit break’ lockdown across England

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has accused Boris Johnson of losing control of the fight against coronavirus in England.

He said that the government should not have overruled its committee of scientific advisers when they called for a circuit break lockdown.

But the government has defended its decision, describing it as a very difficult balance to protect health and jobs.

This was as the latest statistics for Covid cases and deaths for the United Kingdom were confirmed.

In the last 24 hours, there have been 17,234 new cases diagnosed, and there have been 143 deaths in that time.

This gives a total number of deaths so far from Covid of 43,018.