Tory MPs’ anger at Clive Myrie’s jokes on HIGNFY
NEWSREADER Clive Myrie is at the centre of a BBC impartiality row after making tasteless jokes about the Government while hosting the comedy quiz Have I Got News For You.
Tory MPs are furious over Friday night’s jibes on BBC One by Myrie, 59, who is tipped to present the Corporation’s election night coverage with Laura Kuenssberg after Huw Edwards was forced off the air over a sex scandal.
At one point Myrie appeared to shock even the studio audience after referring to Rishi Sunak giving an ‘unexpected’ knighthood to Egyptian tycoon and Tory donor Mohamed Mansour.
He linked the donation to gifts by major Tory backer Frank Hester, who has made offensive comments about MP Diane Abbott. Myrie said the knighthood for Mr Mansour had been unexpected ‘because at no point had he been quoted as saying he wants to shoot a black woman’.
The HIGNFY episode, the first in a new series, was dominated by jokes about Tory Ministers, the Reform party and Donald Trump. In contrast, there were no cutting remarks about Sir Keir Starmer and the Labour Party.
Myrie joked about the Conservatives’ ‘disastrous’ showing in the polls. And he introduced a clip of a newsreader mispronouncing Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s name by using a C instead of an H. He said: ‘People still can’t seem to disguise their feelings about Jeremy Hunt.’ He also showed a picture of a woman tumbling out of a portable loo, claiming it was former PM Liz Truss emerging after she had been on the ‘sparkling wine’ following ‘an appearance at a Right-wing conference in the US’.
He also suggested that Mr Trump was ‘clinically insane’.
Panellist Paul Merton told him: ‘I can feel you’re walking a tightrope, Clive – reading the ten o’clock news and the Jobcentre.’
Tory MP David Jones said: ‘Clive seemed the right choice to anchor the BBC’s election coverage. Now he has allowed himself to be used as a vehicle for cheap anti-Tory jibes, many will wonder if someone else should be doing that job.’
Fellow Tory MP Paul Bristow said Myrie ‘didn’t just cross the line, he threw up all over it’.
He added: ‘If he can’t keep his bias in check, he should put a red rosette on and stand for office.’
The BBC said: ‘It is within the audience’s expectation that jokes will be made about those in the public eye, and we know the audience can tell the difference between news and satire.’