 Keir Starmer's criticisms of Boris Johnson have got a little harsher of late, so in his response to Johnson in Parliament today he accused him of being several steps behind the curve. Forensic, it could be a bit tougher. Someone who has gone further in sort of calling out Boris Johnson is John McDonnell. He has called for the Prime Minister to be brought down. So on Sunday he tweeted this, leave aside party politics in the interest of the country. It's time for a serious cross-party discussion about the replacement of Boris Johnson. We're facing the most serious crisis since the Second World War and it's become fairly clear we have a PM incapable of fulfilling the office. Given the regular way he goes missing it may be that Johnson himself feels he does not want to do it anymore. Johnson's staying maybe advantageous for Labour but perilous for our people. Sunak has also proved to be consistently inept. We desperately need a change. So when I saw this tweet last night obviously I thought we need to get John McDonnell to discuss this very bold, very bold claim to say you know someone who's just won a general election with an 80 seat majority should stand down but we are living in extreme moments. When I spoke to John I started by asking whether this was a serious suggestion or whether he was just making an audacious claim. I think it's real and you can interpret it as an audacious point at the same time as well. You get to a position sometimes and in a crisis where you realise that the person responsible is just not up to the job and I think you have to take action. Now that can be in any situation. It can be in the private sector where a chief executive as we've just seen in British Airways is not up to the job. It can be an individual government minister. The problem that we've got is that we're facing the worst crisis since the Second World War and we have what is proved to be a completely incompetent prime minister and that puts lives at risk. So yes audacious but actually action has to take place. We can't go on like this and the second wave of the pandemic is hitting us. We knew it was coming. We knew it was coming and just as we were ill-prepared at the beginning in March when there was still a refusal by Johnson to take the pandemic seriously and even I can remember he's going around shaking hands Trump like that people then we have the bizarre theory of herd immunity being developed by him and Cummings and now we've had the complete and utter failure developing a strategy around test and trace isolate and tackle and we're now facing the second wave with huge I think health and economic consequences and we have basically someone who's completely incompetent and you do get the impression from the many occasions he's going missing at the moment whether or not he really wants the job anymore. So I think there has to be a serious discussion. This is a very naval chamber in my come afraid sometimes when you're in a crisis like this on a cross party basis you have to feel this man's up not up to the job. There needs to be a replacement and let's get on with it. And who would that discussion be with? I mean if you had discussions with backbench Tory MPs who were thinking about replacing Boris Johnson or are you getting a sense that there's a demand from that from the opposing benches because obviously the Tories have an 80 seat majority you're going to need a lot of Tories to replace Boris Johnson. I think there's rumblings on the conservative benches already about whether or not Johnson is capable of continuing on. There are those rumblings they're pretty minor at the moment and they haven't broken out much in public but it's definitely there and I think some of the wiser heads across parliament really are looking and thinking we can't go on like this you know it's all well and good having sort of a bluffer and a blusterer in normal circumstances and that's annoying in itself. In this situation real damage can be done as a result of what is basic incompetence. So I think there are rumblings I'm trying to bring them to a head now whether or not we'll get that about within the conservative party but it is down to them. I think it goes beyond also the usual conservative practice. The Tories are ruthless when it comes to removing leaders. The Labour Party is not there's always been loyalty to the leader that's been the ethos for the Labour Party. The Tories are ruthless so the men and women in those grey suits if they think there's a problem electorally they will remove their leader and we've seen that time and time again. I'm saying to them now this has gone beyond the electoral problems Johnson is causing for the conservative party in normal circumstances Labour would welcome that you'd leave him in place because the longer he's in place the more electoral damage he does to the Conservatives but when a crisis now people are losing their lives there's immense human suffering. There's an economic crisis you know rising unemployment real poverty and hardship and we have someone in charge who quite honestly comes across and I want to be serious about this isn't political not about it but he's clueless absolutely clueless and we've seen that time and time again. I mean ultimately if Boris Johnson does fall I mean it'll either be because he resigns and you're suggesting maybe he's not that interested in doing the job anymore or that the Conservatives have had enough and they topple him and I suppose a two pronged question I mean who would you want to replace Boris Johnson and who would you see as the most likely candidate to replace him if he does end up having to stand down? I don't have any preference apart from the two who have been responsible so far centrally for most of the policy developed under Boris Johnson, it's been Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak and I'm afraid Rishi Sunak but I found to be particularly inept. He's implemented a number of policies that we put forward on Shadow Chancellor but he's done it in a way which is I think displayed a combination of incompetence and sheer lack of understanding so every improvement on the existing proposals that they implemented has had to be dragged out of him like drawing teeth you know failure after failure the failure to take into account the self-employed the failure to take into account basically the difference in sectoral impact of the pandemic and the unemployment and the economic problems that they face the failure time and time again to fully understand the seriousness of the consequences of the pandemic economically and not act quickly enough or comprehensively enough so I think the pair of them have proved to be just incapable so that's why it has to go beyond those two I have no particular preference I just want someone who we can have at least some confidence in to deal with this pandemic after that you know there will still be the same political differences there will still be the illogical differences between conservative and Labour and we'll contest the next election on that basis but in the meantime we just need somebody who's competent