FOUL MOUTHED
Moment TV host uses shocking insult after ‘robust’ interview with Tory minister outside No10 – before grovelling apology
CHANNEL 4 presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy has apologised after being caught on camera using obscene language to describe a Tory MP.
The Channel 4 news presenter, 52, was overheard using the offensive word after an interview with Conservative Northern Ireland Minister Steve Baker outside Downing Street.
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In the full exchange, which went out on a live feed from outside the PM's residence, Guru-Murthy addresses Baker following his interview - not realising he was still on air.
"Thanks a lot, Steve," he starts by saying. Then, apparently in response to what Mr Baker said, he adds: "It wasn't a stupid question, Steve, you know it, I'm very happy to go up against you on trust any day."
He then laughs before saying, seemingly to himself, "what a c***," and then laughing again.
The clip was picked up by viewers of the live stream, who quickly shared it on social media.
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One Twitter user wrote: "Did the presenter just call Steve Baker a c*** after the interview?! I don't think they expected that to be heard on the live feed."
Guru-Murthy, who is the main anchor on Channel 4 News, later took to Twitter himself to apologise.
"After a robust interview with Steve Baker MP I used a very offensive word in an unguarded moment off air," he said.
"While it was not broadcast that word in any context is beneath the standards I set myself and I apologise unreservedly."
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He added: "I have reached out to Steve Baker to say sorry."
Steve Baker has since replied to the tweet, saying: "I appreciate you apologising. Thank you."
But later, Baker appeared to change his mind as he told Times Radio's John Pienaar he hopes Channel 4 sacks the journalist.
"I had an interview earlier with a journalist I don’t have a great deal of regard for, who I felt always misrepresenting the situation through the construction of his question, which I called out, I think live on air, or I thought it was a pre-record," he said.
"And he clearly didn’t like that, quite right, too. But I’d be quite honest, I spent a long time live on air, calling him out on his conduct as a journalist and glad to do so any time."
He added: "But it’s most unfortunate that he has sworn on air like that. If it’s in breach of his code of conduct, I do hope they sack him – it would be a service to the public."
I used a very offensive word in an unguarded moment off air
Krishnan Guru-Murthy
This isn't the first time Channel 4 News has been accused of anti-Tory bias.
Former culture secretary Nadine Dorries announced she wanted to privatise the broadcaster and said its flagship news programme hadn't done itself "any favours".
Addressing MPs, she referred to eyewitness reports that former presenter Jon Snow allegedly shouted "F*** the Tories" during 2017's Glastonbury Festival.
Channel 4 has been publicly owned since its creation by the Thatcher government in 1982, and is entirely funded by advertising.
It comes on a dramatic day in Westminster which has seen a senior minister resign and the Chief Whip step down, overshadowing the government defeating a vote by Labour which would have seen a ban on fracking reinstated.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman said she had resigned over a "technical infringement of rules" after sending an official document from her personal email.
In her resignation letter, she appeared to savage the PM for her "mistakes" in office.
Grant Shapps, who was Transport Secretary under Boris Johnson, has replaced Braverman in the Home Office.
Her resignation comes just a week after Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng was fired.
Meanwhile, the government's chief whip Wendy Morton and her deputy Craig Whittaker reportedly threatened to quit amid chaotic scenes during a House of Commons vote on fracking.
Labour MPs accused two ministers - business secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg and health secretary Therese Coffey - of having physically "manhandled" and "bullied" a Tory MP into voting down the Labour motion.
But Rees-Mogg insisted in an interview that he hadn't seen any evidence of anyone being manhandled and said there had been a "normal" discussion among MPs.
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The vote means that fracking will go ahead in the UK after the government last month reversed an earlier ban on the extraction of shale gas from under the ground.
Labour's motion - which was presented as a vote of confidence in the government by the whip's office - was defeated by 230 votes to 326, a majority of 96.
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