If you were ever going to give the Tory government the benefit of the doubt, now is the time to abandon it.

You see, at around 5pm on May 1, Health and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock told the world that he had not only hit his target of 100,000 coronavirus tests a day by April 30 – but exceeded it by 22,347. He was lying through his teeth.

After his announcement, we learned that 40,369 test kits – delivered to homes, hospitals or other NHS sites – were included in the total even though they are unlikely to have been used or sent back to a lab.

In fact, only 73,191 tests were known to have been carried out.

That leaves 8,787 for which there is no account at all.

Worse still, the 73,191 tests were not all carried out on different people. It seems only 54,575 people were actually known to have been tested.

Now, I’m pretty sure that – when Hancock boasted that he would achieve 100,000 tests a day by the end of April – a majority of the UK population expected him to mean 100,000 different people would be tested. If so, that was a naive hope.

The size of the lie is enormous. Instead of hitting 122 per cent of his target, Hancock managed only a meagre 54.6 per cent.

I’m convinced these facts would not have come out if This Writer and others had not piled on the pressure both before and during the May 1 daily press briefing. I personally sent 21 tweets on the subject.

Here are the figures:

(I admit I missed one of the figures reeled out by today’s boffin John Newton, which is why those numbers don’t add up to 122,347.)

The public response to this pathetic attempt at wholesale deception has been predictable: outrage.

I won’t subject you to the worst of it – just the wittiest:

https://twitter.com/amateuradam/status/1256266348533030913

There’s no point expecting an apology from Matt Hancock.

He refused to apologise to the son of an NHS doctor who died of the coronavirus because Hancock’s Tory government couldn’t be bothered to ensure he had enough personal protective equipment, and he refused to apologise to the relatives of elderly care home residents who also died of the coronavirus, so he’s not going to apologise about this.

In any case, an apology is not appropriate.

For this, we require his resignation.

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/

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