Fury as Tory MP laughs on live TV when asked about how many people have died in care homes

Helen Whately, the minister for social care, was accused of laughing on Good Morning Britain after Piers Morgan asked her how many people had died of coronavirus in care homes across the UK.

The 43-year-old Tory MP was answering questions about the 'hidden epidemic' reported by the Daily Mail, which found that 4,000 people have died in care homes since the start of the pandemic, but these deaths have gone unreported due to a lack of testing in the facilities.

Anger over these reported numbers forced the government to send Whately out to answer questions from the press but Morgan wasn't taking any prisoners and absconded her during several moments of the interview.

The most notable of these was when she appeared to laugh after Morgan attempted to get the truth of the matter. The veteran broadcaster asked her if the reports were true or false but during his question, a smirk developed across Whately's face which Morgan took objection too and asked her why she was laughing.

Whately defended herself and explained that she wasn't laughing at the question but more because Morgan wouldn't let her answer it, however she stopped short of giving a definitive answer on the overall number of deaths.

Prior to that, Morgan had quizzed her on the issue of how many healthcare workers have died of Covid-19, to which she claimed the answer was 19 (as stated by Matt Hancock on Saturday) – but Morgan called this "complete nonsense" and claimed that The Mirror had reported 38 deaths on Tuesday.

This ended in Morgan telling Whatley to go away and ask for the official number of deaths of health care workers and keep it updated daily as it was 'the least she could do.'

Even before they got into this confrontation, Whately was asked if she was one of the many Tories that voted against giving NHS staff a pay rise in 2017, to which the answer is yes.

Whately tried to defend her position and blame it on 'game-playing by the opposition' but things became very awkward for the MP for Faversham and Mid Kent when Morgan played the moment when Tory MPs cheered after the voted against raising the wage cap in the Commons.

Whately's car crash appearance on Good Morning Britain soon started to make headlines with many feeling that it could have gone better, to put it lightly.

Morgan then added that Whately should be replaced by a 'heavyweight minister' who is better equipped to deal with the ongoing coronavirus crisis.

At the time of writing, the UK has confirmed 12,107 deaths from coronavirus with more than 93,000 people testing positive for the illness.