James O'Brien challenges caller who thinks Government is 'lying' about Covid

27 November 2020, 10:58

James O'Brien challenges furious caller who believes the Govt is lying

By Fiona Jones

This is the moment James O'Brien challenged a furious caller who believes the Government is lying about the seriousness of Covid - but couldn't explain why.

Caller Keith from Slough told James he believes the Covid death figures are falsified and Westminster has an ulterior motive, following Thursday's announcement of England's tougher Tier system.

He insisted the figures "don't make any sense" but struggled to articulate why the Government would attempt to hoodwink the public.

James disagreed with his theory and pushed him repeatedly to answer why - the caller could not answer despite being certain of his conviction.

"The facts through their eyes tell me that they are," Keith said, "in May when everybody was on the beach and nothing's happened."

What you need to know about new coronavirus tier restrictions

"There's been a second spike, we're in it now," James said, "the death rate has hit figures that we haven't seen since May, so obviously all of the efforts that we've made to get infection rates down over that period worked.

"Why do you think you're so angry about something you can't explain?"

Keith responded: "I feel that the Government says one thing, it wants to protect the economy, that acting in our interests...but then does completely the opposite."

James said that theory does not stand up to scrutiny as the Government has said it wants to protect both as much as possible, and Keith was thinking the two are mutually exclusive.

James continued that he could not get past Keith's "absolute certainty" that the Government is lying to him "without the beginnings of an idea why they would want to."

"As a fellow human, I want to help you try and be less angry about something you can't articulate," James said.

"I've got no theory," admitted Keith.

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