The former Manchester United and England footballer lashed out during a pre-recorded interview with Anushka Asthana on Peston, which airs on ITV at 10.45pm on Wednesday evening. Last week, Manchester was placed into Tier 3 – the highest alert level in the Government’s updated and stricter set of lockdown restriction rules. This immediately sparked a backlash from Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, who had been at loggerheads with the Government during the previous tier system when Manchester was being moved from Tier 2 to Tier 3.
Speaking on Peston, Sky Sports football pundit Neville says: “We’re frustrated from the inconsistency, the flip-flop strategies that the government have adopted over the last eight months.
“I think we’re even frustrated about the fact that yesterday the Labour Party abstained.
“You know, your job’s to stand as a leader in the most difficult times – it’s not to abstain, it’s not to not turn up.”
Neville was also asked if he felt the Government had placed Manchester into too high a tier within the new lockdown restrictions system.
He said: “I don’t think it’s necessarily the major complaint of myself or the other members of the community in Manchester about what tier we’re in.
“I think it’s the fact that there doesn’t seem to be a sustainable plan to come out of this pandemic, that we feel that we’ve obviously been in restrictions for quite a long time within Greater Manchester.
“The economic support packages don’t differ than any of the cities that are not suffering those restrictions so there’s an element of feeling that not just ourselves but other Tier 3 areas are being treated unfairly.
“It’s not a North-South thing, it’s not a Manchester v London thing.
“It’s more about I suppose in some ways changing the direction of the messaging. We need to be bold, we need to be bold, we need to make sure that there is hope for the residents of Manchester.”
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