The leader of the UK Labour Party Keir Starmer has said on Wednesday that Prime Minister Boris Johnson is an expert in backtracking after the government was forced into a U-turn over plans to scrap a food voucher scheme for England's poorest families over the summer
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 17th June, 2020) The leader of the UK Labour Party Keir Starmer has said on Wednesday that Prime Minister Boris Johnson is an expert in backtracking after the government was forced into a U-turn over plans to scrap a food voucher scheme for England's poorest families over the summer.
During a session of Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons, Starmer said that the decision on Tuesday to maintain the food voucher scheme through the summer was the third time in a month that the government has been forced to backtrack on key policy.
"The government has had three U-turns in the last month. First, we had immigration health charges, then we had MP's voting, and now we've had free school meals ... Three U-turns. He argues about one brief one week, one week the next, he's an expert in that," Starmer said.
Earlier this month, the government altered its proposals to uphold levying a National Health Service surcharge on foreign medical professionals. Plans to abolish remote voting in parliament were also scrapped after complaints from unions and members of parliament.
In response, Johnson pushed Starmer for his opinion on whether it was safe for children to return to schools amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, prompting the Labour leader to ask whether the prime minister wished to swap places in parliament.
"This is turning into opposition questions, if the prime minister wants to swap places, I'm very happy to," Starmer remarked.
The campaign to get the government to backtrack on its plans to abolish the handout of food vouchers worth $18.81 each week to England's poorest families was led by Manchester United soccer player Marcus Rashford. On Tuesday, Johnson said that he had spoken with Rashford to explain the policy U-turn.
