Rishi Sunak denies saying it was 'OK' to let people die of coronavirus

Rishi Sunak has refuted claims that he said it was "OK" to let people die from coronavirus. The allegations surfaced from a diary entry by Sir Patrick Vallance, the UK Government's chief scientific adviser during the pandemic, which was shared with the UK Covid-19 Inquiry.

The entry from October 25 2020 suggested that Boris Johnson, then prime minister, had argued for letting Covid spread through the population as ministers debated a second lockdown in England.

The same entry recorded Dominic Cummings, Mr Johnson's top adviser at the time, as having said: "Rishi thinks just let people die and that's OK." During Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday, Labour MP Tulip Siddiq expressed her shock that Downing Street didn't outright deny these comments when asked about them by reporters last week. READ MORE: Today's top Manchester Evening News stories READ MORE: Met Office says when and where snow will fall in UK as freezing temperatures hit Greater Manchester Speaking in the Commons, she said: "Can I ask the Prime Minister today, how is it that people who were closest to this issue, who he worked with day in, day out at the top of Government, how on earth did these people get the impression that the Prime Minister was OK with people in our country dying?" Mr Sunak denied making the remark and said he looked forward to providing his own evidence to the inquiry.

The Prime Minister responded to Ms Siddiq, stating: "If she had taken the time to actually read the evidence submitted to the inquiry, she will have seen that the person she mentioned, the chief scientific adviser, confirmed he did not hear me say that." He added, "And that is because I didn't." Both Mr Sunak and Mr Johnson are expected to testify before the