Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid pulled no punches as they questioned why Boris Johnson waited so long to reintroduce lockdown measures in England.
Later this week, pubs, restaurants, bars and non-essential shops in England will close, in a bid to reduce the spread of coronavirus.
However, speaking about the new measures during Monday’s edition of Good Morning Britain, both Piers and Susanna felt that the prime minister could have acted more quickly, and shut things down sooner.
Piers explained: “The prime minister of this country mocked the leader of the opposition for saying we should have a two or three-week circuit breaker. Which is what the Sage (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies) advisory committee – the group of experts… recommended back at the end of September.
“The prime minister, who follows the science, ignored the science. And the big question now is, how many people are going to die now, in the next few weeks, again, unnecessarily, because this prime minister dithered and delayed and got torn [between] all sides of this debate and couldn’t make a damn decision.”
Susanna then interjected: “And how much damage is going to be done, because Sage scientists had suggested a couple of weeks’ circuit-breaker, we now know it’s going to be at least four weeks.
“But we don’t even… I mean, Boris Johnson said that Keir Starmer didn’t have a plan for getting out of lockdown, we don’t know what Boris Johnson’s plan for getting out of the lockdown [is].
“Boris Johnson hasn’t got a plan for what day it is,” Piers concluded.
In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, the Good Morning Britain team won praise for the way in which government officials were held to account on the show.
However, Piers later claimed that ministers had been banned from appearing on GMB due to his interviewing technique.
While Piers has been severely critical of the current government, he did vote for Boris Johnson in the general election last year, saying he felt that the Conservatives were most likely to deliver Brexit.
“I voted for Boris Johnson and the Conservative Party,” he told LBC. “Not from any great love of either, but because, as I have made clear on Good Morning Britain for the last three years, I was incensed by the failure to honour the result of the referendum.
“I voted to Remain and I would vote to Remain again. I’m not a great fan of Brexit. However, I’m a much bigger fan of democracy. And to me, Boris Johnson was the only major party candidate who was offering to honour democracy and to respect the fact that 17.4million people had voted to leave the European Union.”
Good Morning Britain airs every weekday from 6am.