The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
TV presenters mock V&A site as like ‘grim car park’
ITV pair deride city’s top attractions live on air
Piers Morgan described one of Dundee’s most popular tourist areas as a “grim car park” on live TV yesterday.
Good Morning Britain’s Andi Peters was at Discovery Point to launch a competition worth more than £120,000 to viewers, prompting presenters on the ITV breakfast programme to have a dig at the City of Discovery.
Morgan and fellow host Susanna Reid took advantage of the handover to Peters to make a few jokes at Dundee’s expense at about 7.30am.
Former Daily Mirror editor and Britain’s Got Talent judge Morgan suggested his co-worker’s visit to Tayside might signal “the end of days” for his career.
During the exchange, Peters was standing at a vantage point which looks out on to two of the city’s most iconic attractions – RRS Discovery and V&A Dundee.
Morgan said: “Someone who normally likes flying to glamorous hotspots of the world and giving us competitions from lovely glamorous places is today in rainsoaked, freezing cold Dundee trying to flog us a car.
“Andi, I kind of feel like this is the end of days for you. It’s like you’ve gone from Mauritius beaches to what looks like a grim car park in Dundee.”
At one point co-presenter Reid asked: “Have we run out of budget?”
Peters did little to defend Dundee in his rebuttal.
Before flogging the ITV competition, which offered up £80,000 in cash and a £41,000 Mercedes car, he said: “Yes, the gravy train has finally pulled into the last station.”
Meanwhile, a war of words erupted on Twitter after Scottish broadcaster and journalist Lesley Riddoch questioned whether the V&A was “boring” and called it a “disappointment for Dundonians”.
In response, football pundit and newly installed Dundee University rector Jim Spence lamented the “envy of metropolitan provincialism”.
He said: “My entire life I’ve listened to ignorant folk having a cheap shot at the city of Dundee.”
V&A bosses declined to comment.