James O'Brien's passionate response to Tory MPs who want schools to reopen
25 January 2021, 14:18 | Updated: 25 January 2021, 14:21
James O'Brien's passionate response to Tory MPs who want schools to reopen
This is James O'Brien's passionate response to Conservative MPs who are calling for England's schools to re-open.
Although the Government has declined to put an exact date on when students can return to in-person learning, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said he "hopes" pupils will be allowed back by Spring.
James said: "If I hear one more person claim that anybody wants the schools to be closed or anybody wants the country to be in lockdown or anybody wants the economy to be in the deep freeze, then I may tear out what is left of my hair.
"When will the lying stop? You got Brexit by lying. You got a fascist into the White House by lying.
Party-goers are whiny and pathetic, says caller excluded from support
"You are now killing people on an unprecedented global scale, largely by lying.
"When people mix. people die. The more people mix, the more people die."
James O'Brien caller explains why UK has worst death rate in world
Earlier, Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited a vaccination site at Barnet Football Club in north London on Monday morning, where around 13,000 jabs have been delivered since mid-December.
During his visit he talked to reporters about the issue of schools.
Asked if he could give a firm date for schools reopening, Mr Johnson said: "Daily we're looking at the data and trying to work out when we're going to be able to lift restrictions.
"Schools obviously will be a priority but I don't think anybody would want to see the restrictions lifted so quickly while the rate of infection is still very high so as to lead to another great spread of infection.
"We've now got the R down below 1 across the whole of the country, that's a great achievement, we don't want to see a huge surge of infection just when we've got the vaccination programme going so well and people working so hard.
"I understand why people want to get a timetable from me today, what I can tell you is we'll tell you, tell parents, tell teachers as much as we can as soon as we can."
Labour MP Kate Green is set to ask Gavin Williamson an urgent question in the House of Commons on Tuesday asking him to set out the Government plans to reopen schools.
