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Nicola Sturgeon sparked a backlash as she hit out at Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s new deal announcement during her coronavirus press briefing. The Scottish First Minister claimed the Tory leader is shuffling around the system. It comes as Mr Johnson announced a spending spree and a new “opportunity guarantee” to help the economy cope with the “aftershock” of the coronavirus crisis.

Speaking at the daily press briefing, Ms Sturgeon said: “Boris Johnson’s announcement this morning, I hope what the Prime Minister said today is the start of a conversation on fiscal stimulus and not the end.

“To put it mildly, I am extremely underwhelmed by what has been announced this morning.

“I can often judge the scale of fiscal announcements from what we expect to see in consequentials to devolved administrations.

“Our expectation is there will be no additional consequentials from the Prime Minister’s announcement this morning.”

She added: “What that says is this is not new money. This is simply shuffling around money in the system.”

Twitter users were quick to criticise the SNP leader.

One wrote: “Her game plan for snubbing Boris went out the window.”

Another added: “Nicola Sturgeon is so keen not to make the current situation political that she replied to a question that a BBC journalist didn’t ask, in order to tell us how extremely underwhelmed by Boris Johnson’s £5bn infrastructure announcement she is.”

A third person said: “Nicola Sturgeon says she expects Scotland to receive £0 in new consequential funds.”

In the announcement earlier, Mr Johnson acknowledged that jobs which existed at the start of the pandemic may be lost forever but said the new guarantee would ensure placements or apprenticeships for young people.

Mr Johnson promised his response would not be a return to the austerity that followed the financial crisis, but instead a stimulus package inspired by US president Franklin D Roosevelt, who led America out of the Great Depression with his New Deal in the 1930s.

Mr Johnson returned to the theme of his general election campaign, pledging to “level up” parts of the country that had been left behind while London and the South East prospered.

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In a speech in Dudley, a seat the Tories took from Labour, the PM promised to tackle the “unresolved challenges” of the last three decades, highlighting problems in building, social care, transport and the economy.

He acknowledged that jobs that existed in January “are not coming back” after the coronavirus crisis, and the furlough scheme which has seen the state pay people’s wages cannot continue forever.

In response “we will offer an Opportunity Guarantee so that every young person has the chance of apprenticeship or an in-work placement so that they maintain the skills and confidence they need to find the job that is right for them”.

Promising to “build, build, build” his way out of the crisis, Mr Johnson said he would slash “newt-counting” red tape in the planning system to speed up delivery of infrastructure projects and homes.

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