Channel 4 news presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy mercilessly picked apart Boris Johnson’s ‘fake news’ attack on Keir Starmer in an “extraordinary” interview with Nadine Dorries.
The culture secretary, who is one of the few remaining allies of the PM, stepped in after the PM accused the Labour leader of failing to prosecute disgraced entertainer Jimmy Savile when he was head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
The PM made the comments in the House of Commons as he hit back at Labour criticism over the Sue Gray report.
A fact-check by the Reuters news agency in October last year concluded: “There is no evidence to suggest Sir Keir Starmer, then (director of public prosecutions) DPP of the CPS, was directly involved in the decision not to prosecute Jimmy Savile.”
It spells out how the claim gained traction online but that “the suggestion of a link between the handling of the cases and Starmer is baseless”.
On Monday, Nazir Afzal, a former chief Crown prosecutor for the North West, said Johnson’s reference to Savile was “a disgrace to parliament and office of prime minister”.
And it fell on Dorries, culture secretary under Johnson, to defend the PM’s comment in a series of media interviews.
When appearing on Channel 4 News, she was questioned by presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy about what he described as “fake news” and an “old meme repeated by conspiracy theorists”.
Dorries was left only saying “the prime minister tells the truth”.
Watch the interview in full below:
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