Nigel Farage: "Why does the government keep making promises it can't deliver?"

1 June 2020, 19:39 | Updated: 1 June 2020, 19:49

Nigel Farage condemns the government's approach

By Fiona Jones

Nigel Farage calls for the government to tell the "unvarnished truth" in a furious monologue.

This is after Boris Johnson promised on 25 May that a "world-beating" test and trace system would be in place by June 1.

In today's daily coronavirus briefing, the Health Secretary said the "vast majority" people with new cases of coronavirus have been contacted since the system was launched last week - he called it "successful" but did not give specific figures.

Nigel reflected that "no one doubts for a moment" that this pandemic is a very difficult thing to deal with.

"The question I'm asking you is why do they keep making promises that they can't possibly deliver? Why did Boris Johnson tell the country on 25 May that by 1 June 25,000 people would be operating in a world-beating system?

"I cannot find a single caller who's as yet been contacted. Why not say to the public look, we're putting something in place, we've got technical problems with the app, we will get there in the end?"

Nigel said that the point quite a lot of people share is the government "try to put a gloss on everything rather than giving us the unvarnished truth."