TV

Piers Morgan slams MP Thérèse Coffey over coronavirus testing comments

He accused her of lying

TV’s Piers Morgan slammed MP Thérèse Coffey for saying the government can be “proud” of Britain’s coronavirus testing rate.

Piers Morgan slammed Thérèse Coffey’s comments (Credit: ITV)

Read more: Piers Morgan branded ‘hypocrite’ for ‘flouting social distancing rules’

The Work and Pensions Secretary made the comments on Good Morning Britain’s rival show BBC Breakfast as the government is still boycotting the ITV programme.

Piers keeps an eye on what ministers are saying on other shows so he can still challenge them on GMB.

Thérèse Coffey appeared on GMB last month and was criticised for not having the correct information.

Reporting Therese Coffey’s words

Interrupting Dr Hilary Jones to report on the MP’s words, he said: “She’s just said we can look back on our testing, how we increased capacity, with pride. With pride!

“The British government is proud of the fact that we had no tests available for anyone in care homes. Or anyone in hospitals being sent to care homes.”

Read more: Piers Morgan and Dr Hilary Jones clash over coronavirus crisis again on GMB

Therese Coffey
Piers critcised Therese Coffey, who appeared on GMB last month (Credit: ITV)

Piers raged: “They’re proud of our record on testing. Even though we stopped testing in the middle of March to catastrophic effect.

“It’s a matter of pride for the government that our testing was such a spectacular failure.”

Piers then became more and more incensed as he followed her interview on his tablet.

Reading the MP’s words aloud, he went on: “‘Over time we were able to do testing in care homes. Now testing is much more widely available, capacity is there.’

“‘We can’t force people to go and get testing.'”

Read more:Rival petitions over Piers Morgan’s future on Good Morning Britain both pass 50,000

Piers hits back

Turning to the camera, Piers then sent the MP a direct message, saying: “No Thérèse Coffey, you can’t force people to get tested.

“What you can do is take the damn tests down to the care homes and give it to the people that need them.

“Because at the moment you’re boasting about having 100,000 tests a day, but yesterday you tested 9,000 fewer people than you tested the day before.

“You’re not ramping up, Therese Coffey, you’re ramping down. And that is not something to be proud of, that is a scandal.”

Read more: Piers Morgan expresses concerns over daughter returning to school amid coronavirus crisis

Death threats

Piers has constantly pulled the government up over its handling of the pandemic but not everyone is a fan of his bullish interview technique.

The GMB presenter has even received death threats.

Taking to Twitter on May 17, Piers hit back: “Memo to trolls: the more you try to silence me with foul-mouthed abuse, death threats & petitions for me to be fired, the louder & harder I will challenge the Govt over its handling of this crisis. Lives depend on it.”

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Nancy Brown
Associate Editor