Line of Duty writer Jed Mercurio condemns UK government for ‘absolutely sickening litany of evasions’ in coronavirus briefing

Mercurio said ‘people are dying’ because of the ‘failures’ of politicians

Jed Mercurio, the writer of Line of Duty and Bodyguard, has furiously criticised the UK government’s response to the coronavirus crisis.

“Absolutely sickening litany of evasions once again from officials in today's Covid briefing with journalists letting these lying bastards off the hook,” he wrote on Twitter. “People are dying because of the failures of Govt and senior advisers.”

Mercurio’s comments come in the wake of the news that only 2,000 people out of 500,000 frontline NHS England workers had been tested for coronavirus.

At the daily news conference, Public Health England’s Prof Yvonne Doyle appeared to confirm that the UK’s strategy will be to increase testing for the virus in the general population.

The number of UK deaths in hospitals rose on Wednesday (1 April) to 2,352 – an increase of 563 (31%), by far the highest day-on-day rise so far.

Mercurio also retweeted a post from comedian Frankie Boyle, which said: “Certainly not beyond Johnson to just pretend that he has died until it's all over.”

Johnson has tested positive for coronavirus, and is self-isolating in 11 Downing Street. His meals are left at the door and he has continued to lead the government's handling of the crisis by videophone.

Rapper Dave recently posted a strongly worded Instagram live story condemning the Conservative government’s actions during the coronavirus pandemic.

“This country is f***ed,” wrote the artist, before diving into a rant about the government’s history of cutting money to the National Health Service.

“You wanna talk about selfish,” he wrote. ”Selfish is having a government that had the measures to stop an outbreak before it came but decided to prioritise other things. Selfish is the people who voted for the people destroying the NHS that everybody loves so much now.”