Karin Smyth was left squirming on LBC (Image: LBC)
Radio host Nick Ferrari had health minister Karin Smyth squirming as he skewered her live on-air with a simple question. Nick actually had to repeat the query five separate times and still couldn’t get an answer out of Smyth, who stuttered her way through the answer to a completely different question instead.
During the live interview, Nick asked when she was informed that Prime Minister was scrapping England – a move he announced in Parliament yesterday in a bid to cut bureaucracy in the health service. Karin replied: “Well look this is part of, erm, us looking at what really needs to happen in order to make the NHS fit for the future. We- the Secretary of State yesterday- we didn’t intend in coming into office to make this change. Driving change at the front end is what we’re trying to do here.”
But Nick was keen to get to the root of the problem as he pressed: “Yes, minister, that is an answer to a question but it’s not the answer to the question. I asked you when were you informed?”
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Nick Ferrari repeated the question five times (Image: LBC)
Smyth responded: “Erm, well, we’d been discussing this over the past few weeks, obviously, that we have a number of changes, decisions move quickly, the Prime Minister announced it yesterday put it forward into Parliament, so you know, over the last week or so that we have been discussing and deciding that this is the way to go.”
Clearly becoming exasperated, Nick repeated: “Obviously I’m not spelling this question out directly. When were you informed?” but Smyth only replied: “I can’t remember the exact date, to be honest, this is moving so quickly that the discussions-“
Cutting her off, Nick asked: “You can’t remember the day you were told that £192billion quango NHS England was to be scrapped? You can’t remember that day?” Smyth then attempted to say: “The, the, the-“ but was interrupted again for Nick to fume: “I find that extraordinary, this happens on a regular basis, does it?”
Smyth said: “No, the-“ leading Ferrari to say: “So you must remember the day!”
Clamming up, she only said: “No, I don’t remember exactly what day that I knew this was going to be announced.”