Liverpool Mayor "absolutely urging" PM to enforce second national lockdown
18 September 2020, 18:12 | Updated: 18 September 2020, 18:18
Liverpool Mayor strongly supports second national lockdown
After the rise of the UK's R number, Liverpool Mayor Joe Anderson told LBC he would certainly support a second lockdown.
The UK's coronavirus R number has risen to between 1.1 and 1.4, an increase from 1.0 and 1.2 a week earlier, according to the government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies.
It comes after new coronavirus restrictions were announced for the North East on Thursday and for the North West, the Midlands and West Yorkshire on Friday.
Liverpool Mayor Joe Anderson told Eddie, "The fact that we have got different positions for different parts of the country gives people the opportunity to say if they're getting away with it...why should we be doing it here?"
Eddie asked, "Is the only alternative to that a national lockdown?"
Matt Hancock has refused to rule out two-week lockdown
"It may well be necessary to do that," Mr Anderson said, reflecting on the additional reports that 11 million people face lockdown including London which is "perilously close to some forms of lockdowns in boroughs."
"The criticisms that everybody was making of the Government in April was that we wasted too much and took too much time before we entered into lockdown arrangements," he said.
Mr Anderson acknowledged that he will get "a lot of criticisms" for supporting a national lockdown due to economic concerns, but "this is a health issue."
He said that coronavirus will keep spreading unless people follow the rules: "If we have to be tougher and we have to be consistent in our clarity of message then that's exactly what we should do."
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