Lisa Nandy gave an intriguing reply when asked by Andrew Marr on Sunday whether she thought England was on course to 'end all restrictions on June 21st'. Given the collapse in the virus since January, the correct answer should surely have been a resounding 'yes', but instead Marr got this: "I'm not sure to be honest, I think it depends how the next few months play out". The next few months? June 21 is next month.
Was this a Freudian slip or had she genuinely lost track of time? Ten minutes after she was interviewed, her Tory counterpart was also interviewed and asked pretty much the same question. Dominic Raab dodged the question and said that the restrictions would not end before June 21. However, as he answered a separate question about the vaccination of children, he dropped the revelation that - surprise, surprise - some restrictions would remain after June 21. There would be 'something around' distancing and/or masks he confirmed when prompted by Marr.
Upon these pages countless times in the last few months we said this would happen, but we are intrigued as to how much prior knowledge the Labour front bench has. When Lisa Nandy was grilled by TalkRadio's Julia Hartley-Brewer last week she trotted out precisely the same scaremongering nonsense that SAGE have been pumping out for the last month. Has she also been briefed about what won't happen on June 21? She also repeated Boris Johnson's bizarre assertion that vaccines have not been responsible for the decline in the virus. It's all because of the lockdown!
Click below for that clip and note Nandy's reaction when she is faced with real tricky questions about SAGE's prediction of a 'third wave'. She laughs, as if she knows the whole idea is absurd, but she's going along with it anyway...
It's also worth noting that in the above interview Lisa Nandy's location is given as London, yet in her later appearance on Marr she claimed to be the 'first shadow foreign secretary never to leave Wigan'. Funny that, seeing as she was also on the other side of the country in Hartlepool two weeks ago. The lies come thick and fast.
