MPs grilled the British prime minister on COVID-19 and other issues.
ADVERTISEMENTBritish Prime Minister Boris Johnson faced questions from MPs including Labour leader Keir Starmer at prime minister's question time - known as PMQs - in London on Wednesday.
Starmer questioned Johnson on the £130 million that the government had, he said, spent on public relations companies in recent weeks as part of the COVID-19 outreach programme. He added that £150 million had been paid to a firm in a failed attempt to distribute face masks.
Starmer claimed the money had failed to deliver "even one mask" and contrasted it to the amount of money spent to just £6 million used to help charities weather the pandemic.
"The prime minister may not understand the value of the pound in his pocket but the people who send us here do," Starmer said.
Johnson replied that the £130 million had been used to counter the anti-vaccination - or so-called 'anti-vax' - movement, and called for Starmer to retract his comment. He described Starmer's reference to the £150m project as "waffle". He added that 32 million pieces of personal protective equipment, PPE, had been delivered by the government since the beginning of the pandemic.
Johnson added that it was the private sector that had helped the country fight the pandemic, not least in the recent news that pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and BioNTech may have discovered a vaccine for COVID-19 that could be rolled out as early as December.
The weekly event so beloved by UK political journalists focused on a range of issues, including the on government's handling of pandemic a week after the country entered a second national lockdown.
The Scottish National Party's parliamentary leader, Ian Blackford, criticised Johnson over the response to the pandemic, arguing that the UK faced an unemployment crisis due to COVID-19.
Johnson did not face questions over the U.S. election after Joe Biden beat Donald Trump last week, as well as the UK's response to Trump's refusal to concede the election and allegations of voter fraud.
Johnson and his cabinet have been criticised by the opposition Labour party over his closeness with Trump and the White House over the past two years. Starmer, however, said he welcomed the result, as did SNP parliamentary leader Blackford.