Kate Garraway has been commended for her scathing criticism of Foreign Secretary James Cleverly’s comments on the number of police officers.
The conservative MP was questioned by Garraway and Ben Shepherd on Friday’s Good Morning Britain, with the subject swiftly shifting to police numbers.
Cleverly asserted that there would be 22,000 more officers in the UK in only five years, despite assertions from a colleague that frontline cops had grown by 20%, which had already been challenged by FullFact, an independent fact checker.
It led to Garraway calling the Secretary on his figures straight away, first admitting the hosts were ‘frankly a bit nervous challenging ministers on government figures because they can be played in different ways… but they also can be wrong.’
She said that GMB viewers, when a minister is on the show refusing to answer questions in a straightforward way, may be asking themselves: ‘Are we being spun a lie or not?’
To which Cleverly replied simply: ‘No, I’m not lying.’
There was then a fairly long, awkward silence, the hosts giving Cleverly a chance to expand – but when he failed to do so, Kate jumped in.
‘So you’re confident you’re going to hit the targets, that the [20%]figures are right even though they’ve been challenged, you’re confident there’ more police per head of population than ever before, even though that has been challenged?’
Cleverly then interrupted, complaining: ‘Hang on, Kate … you’re saying different things to what I’m saying.’
Garraway explained she was ‘challenging the way you presented the figures … there’s one argument that [the new officers] are just a replacement of the numbers that were cut.’
She also pointed out that the population has grown in that time.
‘You’re accusing me of saying things I never said,’ Cleverly insisted, with Kate then laughing as she said she was ‘just challenging you on the figures.’
‘Police numbers are increasing,’ he said, adding that in many forces ‘there are more police officers now than at any point in history.’
The exchange caused a reaction online, with commenters taking to Twitter, aka X, where one person said Garraway ‘woke up and chose violence today.’
‘Kate Garraway is on one today and I’m all for it,’ another said, while another praised her for ‘standing your ground.’
Good Morning Britain airs weekdays from 6am on ITV
Source My Celebrity Life.
