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An incredulous Piers Morgan ripped Nicky Morgan's maths apart after the MP attempted to explain the Conservatives' '50,000 more nurses' pledge.

In what many viewers dubbed a "car crash interview" on Good Morning Britain today, Piers and co-host Susanna Reid accused her of being disingenuous with her responses.

Yesterday, the Conservatives finally launched their manifesto , which saw Boris Johnson pledge to end the Brexit transition in 2020 , hire an extra 50,000 NHS nurses, reintroduce a nurse bursary which the Government had scrapped and spend an extra £1bn a year for social care in a manifesto called "Get Brexit Done".

However when questioning the Culture Secretary on the ITV programme today, Piers and Susanna were left raising their eyebrows over her remarks about the Tories' pledge to hire more nurses.

(Image: ITV) (Image: ITV)

"Just to clarify," Piers asked her via video link. "19,000 of the 50,000 are already current NHS nurses?"

The flustered MP replied: "If you look at the numbers of nursing staff who leave the NHS it is far too high. So like any employer, you want to make sure that you are keeping your skilled staff so that is absolutely part of the strategy."

But Piers hit back: "Why don't you just say that? Say, 'We're going to try and persuade people who may want to leave to stay' but not call them 'more nurses'.

"We know trust in Boris Johnson is very low. He did a debate recently and it came up as a question and everybody laughed at the idea he could be trustworthy.

(Image: ITV) (Image: ITV)

"When he leads a manifesto, the flag ship policy - is there going to be 50,000 more nurses - and now you as a culture secretary, a member of that cabinet, a member of that government, admit that 19,000 of them already are NHS nurses, viewers at home go, 'This is complete nonsense!'"

Nicky Morgan replied: "But there are other ways nurses come into the NHS. There will overall, and we are very very clear on this, [be] 50,000 more nurses, if you look in 10 years time than there are today."

A frustrated Piers pointed out that she "kept saying that" and that 19,000 of them are existing ones.

"I think it's realistic to say we've got highly skilled staff that we do not want to leave and if we are able to persuade them and encourage them to stay, that is good news for nursing care in this country," Nicky said.

Susanna jumped in: "But that is not more nurses! It is a bit like saying, 'On Good Morning Britain tomorrow morning there will be three more presenters' and then tomorrow you just have exactly the same number of presenters because you managed to persuade me, Piers and Charlotte to carry on doing the job tomorrow. It's not more."

"Not if there's an additional three," Nicky replied. "If there's an additional three, you've got your six then, haven't you. But the fact is that three of you have been encouraged to come on on Tuesday morning and not just on Monday morning."

Stunned, Susanna smiled and said: "Do we not have really odd maths?"

Piers remarked: "Nicky, as soon as you began saying that sentence you probably knew that was the wrong avenue to go down."

*Good Morning Britain airs weekdays at 6am on ITV