This Morning presenters Philip Schofield and Holly Willoughby have joined the criticism of Boris Johnson’s lockdown announcement by suggesting the government had ‘arsed it up’.
Schofield appeared on the daytime television programme alongside co-presenter Willoughby to claim that the televised address to the nation had ‘created more questions than answers’.
He opened the show saying: ‘We’ve got to start this morning in a state of utter confusion after last night’s address to the nation by Boris Johnson. His speech created more questions than answers.’
Willoughby added: ‘And the answers seem to change every half hour.’
She continued: ‘I think we’re just about holding on we’ve all done so well. We’ve all done exactly as we’ve been told.
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‘We were doing so well to keep our spirits up, to keep going, to keep going, to keep going, but when there is this level of confusion, it knocks you back.
‘When you feel you are just getting to grips with it, you’re just keeping afloat, it just knocks you back again.’
Schofield said the changes had made him unclear on the instructions, adding: ‘That is the trouble this morning, we now lack clarity, I understood until last night at 7 o’clock, I understood where we were going, I understood what was happening.
‘Now I don’t understand, I don’t know what’s happening.’
The pair said the guidance over visiting parents makes ‘no sense whatsoever’, and Dominic Raab’s lack of clarity in television and radio interviews prior to the pair going live on-air did not help.
Willoughby said the government had ‘decided not to speak to ITV today’ which included their show and Good Morning Britain.
‘You literally couldn’t write this. If this was in a farce on the telly, I’d go, ‘that’s a bit far fetched, no government would arse it up that much” said Schofield.
‘It’s utterly astonishing. We have been really level on here, we have been really sensible on here, but this has just tipped us over the edge today.
‘Until maybe somebody, maybe, would come on the show and explain actually what it is you want us to do?
‘What are we allowed to do? Are you genuinely saying we can only meet one parent? Can you meet one parent in the morning and another parent in the afternoon? Can you go round to their house or does it have to be outside? What do you mean?’
He added: ‘You made us cross today I’m afraid, Boris, today you made us cross’.
One viewer, Sunny Harrison, tweeted: ‘Phillip Schofield saying the government has ‘arsed it up’ on morning telly is the English equivalent of storming the Bastille’.