Boris Johnson calls on opposition leaders to work with him to beat coronavirus ‘national emergency’ with crunch talks

The Prime Minister today invited his rival leaders to parliament to come up with a plan to fight the pandemic.

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He has offered to host a briefing with them and the Chief Medical Officer and Chief Scientific Adviser next week.

In a letter, he wrote: "As party leaders, we have a duty to work together at this moment of national emergency.

“I want to listen to your views and update you on the measures we have taken so far, such as rapidly expanding testing and providing economic support to businesses and individuals across the country.

“The Government I lead will act in the national interest at all times and be guided by the best scientific evidence, and of course we will continue to engage constructively with all political parties on the national effort to defeat this pandemic.”

New Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer today agreed to the talks.

A spokesman said: “This afternoon, Keir Starmer spoke with the Prime Minister about the current national emergency.

"Keir offered to work constructively with the Government on how best to respond to the coronavirus outbreak, accepted the Prime Minister’s offer to meet next week and agreed arrangements for Privy Council briefings and discussions.”

It comes with the PM staying in isolation today as he is still unwell with coronavirus - but he warned the British public not to go out and enjoy good weather this weekend.

The PM has been isolating for at least a week after being diagnosed with the virus, yet he still has a temperature.

Speaking yesterday, he said: "In my own case, although I'm feeling better and I've done my seven days of isolation, alas I still have one of the symptoms, a minor symptom, I still have a temperature.

"And so in accordance with Government advice I must continue my self-isolation until that symptom itself goes.

"But we're working clearly the whole time on our programme to defeat the virus.

"You'll have seen the big announcement yesterday about 100,000 tests per day by the end of the month."

The news the PM is not yet over the illness puts him at odds with most of the population.

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