THE Tories took a hammering for their coronavirus crisis cronyism as more than 5,000 people tuned in to Monday night’s Labour conference rally hosted by the Socialist Campaign Group.

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the rally was the “biggest one ever” with conference events being held online this year.

He warned that the Covid-19 crisis would never be solved by the government “contracting everything to companies like Serco, and hoping it goes away.”

Hemsworth MP Jon Trickett said that the Tory government is using the pandemic to “put their hands in the wallets of taxpayers” by offering large sums of money to their party donors and associates in exchange for faulty testing schemes and equipment.

He described it as “cronyism on an industrial scale” and a “full-bodied Tory assault” on public health, adding: “It’s what the Tories always do, but this time with brass knobs on.”