Piers Morgan says death threats only push him to criticise government further

Good Morning Britain host say ‘lives depend’ on challenging Downing Street strategy

ITV presenter Piers Morgan has revealed he has received death threats over his criticism of the government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis, claiming they will only encourage him to challenge ministers “louder and harder”.

The Good Morning Britain host said “trolls” had subjected him to threats, abuse and petitions to get him fired from the daily morning show.

Vowing to carry on with his critiques, Mr Morgan tweeted: “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.”

The host resumed his criticism on Monday morning’s show.

He attacked ministers’ repeated claims the government was “ramping up” coronavirus testing — pointing to the latest figure showing just over 76,000 people were tested on 16 May, only a small increase on daily figures seen at the end of April.

“The number of people tested have barely moved,” he said. “There’s no evidence of ramping up going whatsoever. If we don’t get to significantly higher levels of people tested.

Mr Morgan added: “There’s no ramping up going … I would argue, and they shouldn’t be pretending there is.”

The presenter — who has repeatedly clashed with ministers since the beginning of the pandemic — also lambasted the government for refusing to put people forward to appear his programme.

“This will be the 20th day of its boycott of our show during the worst national crisis since WW2,” he said. “All because we asked them tough questions. We’ll keep asking them.”

The presenter was cleared by Ofcom after the media regulator received 4,000 complaints about his interviews with Conservative politicians.