Key quotes:

• “I am sorry I have been away from my desk for much longer than I would have liked”
• “If this virus was a physical assailant – an unexpected and invisible mugger (which I can tell you from personal experience it is) – then this is the moment when we have begun, together, to wrestle it to the floor. And so it follows that this is the moment of opportunity, this is the moment we can press home our advantage, it is also the moment of maximum risk”
• “I know that without our private sector, without the drive and commitment of the wealth creators of this country, there will be no economy to speak of… I can see the long-term consequences of lockdown”
• “I refuse to throw away all the effort and all the sacrifice of the British people and risk a second major outbreak”
• “I believe we are coming now to the end of the first phase of this conflict, and in spite of all the suffering, we have so nearly succeeded. We defied so many predictions; we did not run out of ventilators or ICU beds; we did not allow our NHS to collapse”
• “When we’re sure this first phase is over and we’re meeting our five tests… then that will be the time to move onto the second phase in which we continue to suppress the disease and keep the reproduction rate down, but begin gradually to refine the economic and social restrictions, and one-by-one fire up the engines of this vast UK economy”
• “We simply cannot spell out now how fast, or slow, or even when those changes will be made”
• “I want to serve notice now that these decisions will be taken with the maximum possible transparency”
• “If we as a country can show the same spirit of optimism and energy shown by Cpt. Tom Moore – who turns 100 this week -… then I have absolutely no doubt we will beat it together, we will come through this all the faster, and the United Kingdom will emerge stronger than ever before”