Emily Maitlis has never been one to sugarcoat her words. Indeed, it’s her no-nonsense, straight-talking approach to news that has made Maitlis one of the internet’s favourite political journalists today.

Now, more than ever, it’s important that our political journalists hold our leaders to account. That they interrogate the information being given about the coronavirus pandemic. That they seek the truth, and ask the big questions, wherever possible. And, during last night’s episode of Newsnight, Maitlis did just that.

“The language around Covid-19 has sometimes felt trite and misleading,” she said, directly addressing the fact that Dominic Raab has described Boris Johnson – currently in intensive care – as a “fighter”.

“You do not survive the illness through fortitude and strength of character, whatever the prime minister’s colleagues will tell us,” Maitlis continued. “And the disease is not a great leveller – the consequences of which everyone, rich or poor, suffers the same.

“This is a myth which needs debunking.”

Emily Maitlis just shut down the government’s misleading coronavirus narrative