Matt Hancock LIED about hitting 100,000 coronavirus tests target. Why does he still have a job?

Matt Hancock: he lied – unforgivably. He needs to resign.

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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7 Comments

  1. Adam Penny (@adamdpenny) May 2, 2020 at 9:11 am - Reply

    Fudged would be a much better description than lie. 80,000 tests completed with 40,000 in the post is a massive turnaround. The fact that you’re more on focussed on arguing about the semantics of a target almost underlines why the instinct is to fudge it rather than be completely frank about it.

    • Mike Sivier May 2, 2020 at 1:27 pm - Reply

      You are the one arguing about semantics.

      Hancock clearly lied.

      There was no “fudge”.

  2. chriskitcher May 2, 2020 at 9:12 am - Reply

    We all knew that he would say that he had reached the 100,000 mark but we all knew that being an inveterate liar, like all Tories, this would once again be a whopping great lie.

    I really do think that the time has now come to start laying blame where it should properly rest and not wait until all of this has blown over and will be forgotten about.

  3. Jon May 2, 2020 at 11:33 am - Reply

    He also lied about that teen that died alone, turns out the kid had died in several countries using different names too. While your at it, have a look at the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony, hospital beds, dancing nurses and children being chased across the beds by viruses. Then you’ve got BOJO sitting up in a hospital bed and when they show an aerial view of the stadium it lights up like a CORONA VIRUS. If you really have eyes to see, you might even clock a little Greta the ecotard. It’s by far some of the best predictive programming you’ll ever see!

  4. Growing Flame May 2, 2020 at 12:17 pm - Reply

    Have to admit it was a nice touch to give a final figure WELL exceeding the target. When dictators of banana republics announce victory with 97% of voter support , we just KNOW the figures are rigged. Just so close as to be not believable.
    So the Tories realised they had to give a successful figure but avoid a “just made it! Phew!” type number. So they claimed well over 120K to make it look so good it must be accurate!
    Anybody would think that they have a supine, compliant, incurious mass media on their side.
    Not to mention a Labour opposition Leader who won’t fall about laughing but puts on a serious “statesman-like” face in a show of support.

  5. david May 2, 2020 at 1:28 pm - Reply

    I have heard, but can not corroborate, that some tests have arrived with no return envelope nor address. When people have contacted the help centre they have been advised to toss them in the bin and another would be sent out. If they are counting tests sent out then that would count as 2 tests.

    • Mike Sivier May 2, 2020 at 11:46 pm - Reply

      See: Matt Hancock’s mad scrabble to hit 100,000 coronavirus tests a day meant thousands of kits were wasted – and the number of tests halved the very next day.

      This puts the seal on Hancock’s coronavirus testing lie https://wp.me/p4Sru1-drm

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