GOOD Morning Britain’s Adil Ray had a fiery clash with minister Gillian Keegan today after he accused the government of “lying”.
The Apprenticeships and Skills minister was on the breakfast show to discuss the current international travel rules – but was not happy when the conversation took a turn.
Adil, 47, questioned why India wasn’t put on the red list alongside other countries last month.
Visibly angry, he said: “We have been trying to ask this question to your colleagues all week, and we’ve had a variety of answers.
“Quite simply, why on April 9th when you put Pakistan and Bangladesh on the red list – and they had far fewer cases than India, and India had the problem – why wasn’t India placed on the red list?”
GMB then shared a highlight reel of clips of other politicians discussing the issue – including Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and Matt Hancock.
Addressing the MP again, Adil went on: “Two of them were absolute lies, and that is a fact.
“I will keep saying it until we get some honesty from the government – Boris Johnson claimed the reason that Pakistan was on the red list because of the South African variant, there wasn’t on the 9th April.
“Matt Hancock claimed there was three times a higher proportion of positive tests in the UK from travellers in India than from Bangladesh and Pakistan… we’ve got figures, that was a lie.
“Come on… why wasn’t India, which has got the biggest level of cases in the world, please tell us honestly – why India wasn’t placed on the red list?”
After beginning her defence, Keegan angrily snapped: “By the way, that is very offensive to say that there’s lies.
“People are trying their best to manage a very difficult situation. You can sit there very easily asking questions which are handpicking different bits of facts.
“That is actually not helpful.”
Adil spoke over her as he argued: “Which bit wasn’t a lie?”
But Keegan refused to buckle, adding: “You’re saying this as though at the time the information you are given is absolutely perfect information!”
The clash continued, with Adil going on to argue why there are still so many flights coming in from India, but not Pakistan.
However, Keegan insisted that was down to the airlines, not the government – admitting that the system wasn’t perfect.
Wrapping up the interview, Adil said: “Maybe the only thing we will agree on, it’s certainly not a perfect system.”
To which Keegan hit back: “It is a very good system, one of the best in the world.”
