Sir Martin Sorrell says government were too slow to lock down
4 June 2020, 13:24 | Updated: 4 June 2020, 13:27
Sir Martin Sorrell says government were too late to lock down
Advertising guru Sir Martin Sorrell told LBC that the government were too slow to lock down due to coronavirus and that has made it more difficult to get the economy going again.
Sir Martin was backing Nick Ferrari's drive to get the UK back to work - with advertising one of the key indicators of an economy that is booming.
And he said he felt the government should have locked down earlier, even if that meant an earlier hit to the economy.
He said: "The government reacted too slowly here.
"They were, to my mind, going down what I would describe as a herd immunity route. They knew the statistics. I was told in late January that some models were predicting that if you took Chinese mortality rates and you applied to the UK, you could see a death rate of 300,000 - 500,000. And I don't think the government took action fast enough.
"When they made the decision to go down a lockdown route in March, they purportedly did it because their committees were faced with models from Imperial, which were showing 200,000 deaths from Covid-19.
"I saw statistics that the EU 27 had less deaths from Covid-19 yesterday than the UK - we've got a population of 60million compared with 240million.
"My view is that they probably reacted too slowly. They should have gone for a lockdown [earlier], however difficult it was."
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