Piers Morgan Good Morning Britain interview receives nearly 2,000 Ofcom complaints

Many viewers thought Morgan's interview with the Care Minister Helen Whatley was unfair

Since it aired last week, Piers Morgan’s Good Morning Britain interview with care minister Helen Whately has received nearly 2,000 Ofcom complaints.

In the interview, Morgan repeatedly corrects Whately’s figures on the number of NHS staff who have died from the coronavirus.

Morgan called Whately’s claim that just 19 NHS staff members had lost their lives working on the front line during the pandemic “nonsense”.

The former Mirror editor claimed that the figure was much higher, using newspaper reports to back up his point.

Following the broadcast, the television regulator received 1,900 complaints from viewers who claimed the politician was treated “unfairly”.

This morning, Morgan took to Twitter to call on his fans to back him.

The 55-year-old wrote: “Apparently nearly 2000 people have now complained to @Ofcom about me grilling Care minister Helen Whateley too ‘unfairly’ when she couldn’t answer even basic questions.

”If you think I should continue grilling ministers in the way I’ve been doing, please tell @OFCOM. Thanks.”

A number of people came to his defense. One wrote: ”At a time when thousands are dying each week in the UK from Covid-19, we must have journalists holding Gov Ministers to account, particularly when they don’t understand their brief or evade and dodge reasonable questions. This @Ofcom is what Piers Morgan is rightly doing.“

Responding to his accusations, Whately replied: ”I don’t get my data from newspapers, I have to get it from the NHS and our scientists.“

In a statement following the interview, Ofcom confirmed that it had received a number of complaints and was investigating them.

It read: ”We are assessing the complaints against our broadcasting rules, but are yet to decide whether or not to investigate.”

Morgan invited Whately onto the programme for a second interview and she agreed.

A further 214 complaints were launched off the back of this follow up after Morgan raised the question of the number of people who had died in care homes, and criticised the minister for apparently not knowing the answer.

He said: ”You come back on this programme after what many people thought was a car-crash interview – at what point do you come back and have an answer?”

Bringing up the reported figures once more, he continued: ”There is a very good reason to believe that it’s over 41,000 people, including thousands and thousands in care homes, and that is your job to know this stuff.

“I find it incredibly insulting that the care minister has no idea how many people are dying in our care homes.

”These are elderly and vulnerable people, dying of Covid-19, and you are not taking their deaths seriously enough.”