George Osborne tells me on @TimesRadio that Major, Blair, Brown and Cameron wrote to Johnson privately in July about the need to get a grip on testing...
"All the former Prime Minister's bar one wrote privately to Boris Johnson in July, saying this was the priority, and I still feel it's been too much something that has been given to the health department, given to the NHS, and the rest of the government has not thrown the full...
...weight of the British state behind it. And it's been distracted by other things, you know, and it shouldn't be this is the absolute number one overwhelming priority facing the country"
...
I asked who the ex-PMs were...

Osborne: "My understanding is it was everyone but Theresa May. I don't know why she didn't want to write the letter...
...if you've got Conservative and Labour Prime Ministers who've between them have got many decades of experience...that I think is something that should have been listened to."
Here is @George_Osborne on that extraordinary letter to Johnson from four ex-PMs

https://twitter.com/TimesRadio/status/1325813034825248769/video/1
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