Piers Morgan hits out at Boris Johnson’s apology after UK coronavirus death toll passes 100,000

Piers Morgan slammed Boris Johnson’s apology and criticised his government’s policies after the national coronavirus death toll passed 100,000.

In a press briefing following the announcement, the prime minister said: “I am deeply sorry for every life that has been lost and, of course, as prime minister I take full responsibility for everything the government has done.”

He also said it was “hard to compute the sorrow” and claimed the government “did everything that we could to minimise suffering and minimise loss of life in this country as a result of the pandemic”.

Morgan hit out at Johnson’s statement on Good Morning Britain: “Is he sorry for any of the actions he took? And judging by what he said, no he’s not. He’s not actually sorry for anything he’s done.”

Quoting the prime minister, the host continued: “We did everything we could have done… and we’ll carry on doing everything we can - now that’s not an admission of doing anything wrong, and yet the obvious conclusion from this horrible milestone is that he did a lot of things wrong. And I want to start hearing this government admitting it.”

Morgan and co-presenter Susanna Reid listed the government’s failings during the course of the pandemic, such as the policy of sending care home residents back from hospital without testing, after they had paid tribute to some of those who have died.

The former Daily Mirror editor said: “We pursued herd immunity, because that’s what you do with flu, but it was the wrong strategy. Then we abandoned it.

“We had a testing system that didn’t work.

“We had no PPE, which is why 800 health and care workers have died…

“Through the summer what did we do? We had Eat Out To Help Out, what did that do? Excited the virus again didn’t it? Had millions of people all crammed into small places.”

Reid added: “We ignored the advice about a circuit breaker and went late to a lockdown in November, which really wasn’t a very strict lockdown at all.

“And then at the end of November, the government announced that come Christmas we could all have a big party.”

Morgan went on to say: “Then the new variant comes. And rather than learn all the lessons from the late lockdowns earlier in the year, and just locking down immediately to suppress it… we let it just run around for a week, two weeks. Eventually locked down in early January by which time it was everywhere and now we see 1,500, 1,600, deaths 1,700 deaths recorded every single day.”

He concluded: “Every single step of the way Boris Johnson has been too late and too dithering and too keen to please, and listening to too many idiots in his ear telling him, don’t you dare lock down, we can control this virus, we’re all getting on with our normal lives.”

Social media users reacted to the clip from GMB.

Morgan has previously confirmed he voted for the Conservative Party in the 2019 general election.