James Gray, MP for North Wiltshire

YOU'D have thought that the last thing we need at a time like this is political point-scoring, silly political games, holier-than-thou virtue signalling. Yet we have had a fair bit of it this week.

Andy Burnham tried to make his name as Champion of Manchester, but looked a bit silly as a result by comparison with his Labour mayoral colleagues, Dan Jarvis in Sheffield who has quietly done a perfectly sensible deal with the Government, and even Sadiq Khan in London, who has avoided the worst kind of posturing.

It is right that the Government pay for extra costs which a Local Authority in Tier Three may have to bear - Test and Trace costs, extra policing and the like. It was announced yesterday that Wiltshire Council, for example, are to get a further £3million, which comes close to covering our excess costs.

Mr Burnham’s posturing was reminiscent of the old ‘us and them’ negotiating tactics of the hard-left unions in the 'seventies. His constant claim that “This Tory Government hates the North of England…” and similar, was not only stupid, but also rather unconvincing. I kept expecting him to declaim ‘Workers of the World Unite….You have nothing to lose but your chains.’

At PMQs Sir Keir Starmer tried to criticise most of what we had done as being too stringent; but he then went on to offer his own solution - a total lockdown of the whole country for at least three weeks. So Wiltshire where we (thankfully) still have a very low infection rate would be in the same boat as Liverpool and Manchester. That seems a little harsh, Sir Keir!

Then, on Wednesday, a Labour Party motion in the House of Commons suggesting that schools up and down the land should be responsible for supermarket vouchers instead of free school meals in school holidays through until next Easter was resoundingly defeated.

Schools have no responsibility for poverty nor hunger. That is a matter for the Department of Work and Pensions, who also have the mechanisms necessary to help those who cannot afford to feed their children. How can Heads and Chairs of Governors be held responsible for what happens to children during the school holidays?

Labour hoped that our rejection of this self-regarding virtue signalling motion would be met by a howl of protest, encouraged by their less than appealing front bencher shouting ’Scum’ at a Tory speaker across the floor of the House.

They will have been disappointed by the whimper of protest as a result of a general realisation that this was nothing other than a party-political stunt. (Even if their motion had been passed it would have had no effect whatsoever.)

By contrast, Rishi Sunak came forward on Thursday with a raft of measures to help businesses which will be worst affected by the Tier Three lockdowns.

Furlough is extended with the Government paying much more, employers less; there are cash grants for hospitality and leisure businesses in Tier 2 – worth up to £2100 per month, and backdated to August; and a doubling of the third self-employed grant from 20 per cent to 40 per cent of self-employed peoples’ profits. Those together with a string of other measures are real help to businesses and employees alike.

We are all facing tough times; and we must all do our bit to stop the virus spreading more than absolutely necessary. Party-political point-scoring should form no part of our reaction to a National Emergency.

Sir Keir should take some lessons not from Keir Hardy (after whom he is named) but from Mr Attlee and his Labour colleagues throughout the Second World War.