Paul Scully has had a bad morning. To kick off his cringeworthy round of media appearances, he appeared on LBC to discuss the Government’s new apprenticeship scheme.
But it quickly went sour for Scully when he struggled to tell the host how much the programme would cost the UK taxpayer,
Presenter Nick Ferrari was furious that Scully didn’t have the figures and details to hand.
Ferrari then asked his question differently and asked how much was the total funding.
Again, Scully floundered and said the funding was not “open-ended” and admitted he did not have the figures with him.
Ferrari would not let up and asked again how much the scheme would cost the taxpayer.
He said: “Respectfully, you are the small business minister and your job here today is to tell everybody what your government [is doing].
“And you have no idea whether this will cost one million, ten million, a billion pounds… you have no idea.
“You’re handing out £3,000 of my listeners’ money but you’ve no idea the total cost.
“I find that extraordinary minister.”
Scully was also on Good Morning Britain today, and he struggled there as well.
When asked by Ranvir to give a percentage on if the full ending of Covid restrictions will go ahead as planned on June 21, Scully told her he thought “speculation wasn’t helpful,” adding: “I think we just need to get through this frustrating period. We’ve always said it’s data not dates.”
As Scully continued to be quizzed on the concerns over a third wave, Ranvir asked him: “why does Boris Johnson not answer any of these questions?”
He replied: “Boris Johnson does a number of press conferences and he answers questions all the time,”
Ranvir then fired back: “not like this though, not like you are.”
Then co-presenter Adil Ray had a pop at Scully He said: “We are in this position now because of a catastrophic deadly error by the government.
“You were told about the Indian variant on the 1st of Apri, so why was India only placed on the red list on the 23rd of April. What were the government thinking?”
Related: PMQs, 26th May: Cummings’ inside job ‘absolutely fu*ked’ the Downing Street Garden heist
