Fiona Bruce, the host of Question Time, spoke to a virtual audience from Coventry along with a delegation of politicians and professionals.
On the panel was Gillian Keegan MP, Andy Burnham, Dame Donna Kinnair, Yanis Varoufakis and Michael Portillo.
The BBC’s weekly debate show saw an audience member praise the Prime Minister for dealing with the pandemic amid mass public scrutiny.
It follows recent YouGov polling showing Boris Johnson lose his head over Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer over the public’s dislike of his handling of the pandemic.
Paul Somerfield, from Coventry, was asked by Fiona Bruce to give his views on the coronavirus pandemic, where he made a call for unity between political parties.
He stated that we really must unite and that we must stop Boris bashing and he added that there’s been no other Prime Minister who’s governed during such horrendous times in our peacetime.
And he continued that now was the time for the United Kingdom to all unite and get behind him and adhere to the rules and regulations because there’s no immediate fix.
Andy Burnham criticised the Government, saying that it did feel increasingly to people that they were being treated with hatred in the North of England and he went on to say that the Government needs to help enterprises with a full furlough scheme if localised lockdowns persist.
Audience member Jaspal responded to the comments and said of the UK Government’s response to the pandemic that because it’s unprecedented and that why couldn’t we take unprecedented actions? And then why couldn’t we say take all the politics out of this because it always felt like a bit of a slanging match.
The audience’s comments were also in answer to a conflict between Andy Burham and Gillian Keegan MP, minister for apprenticeships and skills.
The Manchester mayor asked whether the Government was doing all it could to protect job losses and hardship from the pandemic in the North of England, which enraged Gillian Keegan.
Boris Johnson himself has thrashed Labour for not getting behind the Government during the pandemic, but Sir Keir Starmer has frequently asserted he’s supported the Government’s restrictions to manage the pandemic.
Early in September, the Labour leader offered cross-party backing for any genuine national plan to protect from job losses and during this week’s Prime Minister’s Questions, Sir Keir Starmer blasted Boris Johnson for intergalactic incompetence for not publicising the scientific basis for his 10 pm curfew on pubs and restaurants, and may not support the measure when it heads to the Commons this week.
Unfortunately, the Conservatives will never get any better and Boris Johnson’s a second rate loser who can’t even hold down a job in the real world. Honestly, would you give him a job? I definitely wouldn’t.
Perhaps if he would answer a simple question when put to him, but he can’t seem to do that, instead he pitches a tantrum like some small child and some would say he’s doing a competent job in extremely challenging circumstances and other people probably wouldn’t be able to it, but they’re quick to criticise.
Of course, it’s not that hard to do a better job than Boris Johnson and he’s in the top ten worst of my leaders in the whole world when it comes to the coronavirus and he might appear to have done a brilliant job with the worst infection rate in Europe, but he’s spent weeks dithering and doddering and none of the rules makes any sense.