Top 10 Hypocrites on Live TV

#10: Edwina Currie

You’d struggle to find anyone who wanted to defend the government in 2020, and yet, Edwina Currie still turned up on “Good Morning Britain” to give it a go. She was in the government’s corner throughout the pandemic, which is even more baffling in hindsight than it was at the time. In this clip, Currie was on to insist that the Covid guidelines weren’t confusing wh atsoever. Despite that, she was unable, when put on the spot, to explain a lot of the rules, insisting that they were “common sense” even when various government ministers seemed to be unable to follow their own rules – Matt Hancock and Dominic Cummings chief among them.

#9: Laura Kuenssberg

Is Laura Kunessberg unbiased? You’d certainly struggle to find anybody who thinks so. For years, Kunessberg – who used to be BBC News’ political editor and now presents the Beeb’s prestigious Sunday morning political chat show – has been accused of being a pro-Tory mouthpiece. She’s supposed to be neutral because of her job at the BBC, and yet, she’s been reprimanded for bias multiple times. She was even a key source in the Dominic Cummings’ Barnard Castle fiasco because Cummings kept briefing her directly, sending her exclusive texts. And she once tweeted fake stories which she then had to retract and apologise for. It’s a miracle that she still works for the BBC at all.

#8: Thomas Skinner

Mr Bosh himself had some choice comments to make about social media when he appeared on this 2026 edition of “Question Time”. Though it’s easy to agree in principle with what Skinner was saying about social media being too divisive, he was immediately called out, including by Fiona Bruce, for the fact that he makes money on it himself. He admitted at the beginning to making money on social media, and then didn’t put two and two together and accept that he’s personally benefiting from algorithms online. It was remarkable to watch him sit there and argue both sides of the case at once without seeing that he was a walking contradiction.

#7: Mark Dolan

It wasn’t just Dolan guilty of hypocrisy over this, but basically everyone at GB News. In 2023, Laurence Fox and Dan Wootton found themselves cast off GB News’ middling airwaves after Fox made some sexist remarks about journalist Ava Evans. While a great many people were glad to see them leave GB News over this, it didn’t go down well with the channel’s key audience, as they were viewed as submitting to the free speech policing the channel was set up to push back against. It turned out that some things are controversial enough for even them to take action over, leading to cries of betrayal from its devoted, anti-woke viewers.

#6: Nadine Dorries

She has no shortage of bizarre moments, but this viral clip from a live select committee hearing takes the cake. She was still an MP serving as the culture secretary when this happened in 2021, and at the time was gunning for Channel 4, wanting to sell it because she thought it was a drain on public finances. She was then roundly humiliated by the committee when they pointed out that Channel 4 might be publicly-owned, but it’s not in receipt of public money from licence payers, and is funded commercially through advertisements. It’s not surprising that she didn’t last as culture secretary for very long, and has since defected from the Tories to Reform UK.

#5: Piers Morgan

To this day, Piers Morgan prides himself on always being open to debate, always asking the difficult questions, having interviews with controversial figures that few other journalists are able to get. But that façade tumbled away in 2021 when he quit “Good Morning Britain” live. He got into a spat over whether he should give it a rest criticising Meghan Markle, something he didn’t want to do, throwing a tantrum after being given the smallest pushback from Alex Beresford. It was deeply embarrassing and he still hasn’t lived it down, even after years fronting his own successful talk show. He got tens of thousands of complaints for his outburst.

#4: Richard Dawkins

Did you have Richard Dawkins becoming a Christian on your 2020s bingo card? In 2024, Dawkins, father of the New Atheist movement and author of foundational atheist text “The God Delusion” announced live on LBC that he was now a “cultural Christian”. This means that he doesn’t actually believe in Christianity, but he does believe that the UK shouldn’t “substitute” an “alternative religion” – which means he doesn’t think any more mosques should be allowed to be built. But it’s pretty brazen of him to sit there and complain about there not being enough cathedrals or churches while also saying he’s glad that fewer people believe in the gospel because it’s “nonsense”.

#3: Phillip Schofield

He’s been called a hypocrite for a great many things over the years, chief among them the apparent disconnect between his public persona and private life. But in 2023, after his monumental scandal, one woman in particular had something to say about him: Carla Bellucci. You may remember her as the woman who conned the NHS out of a free nosejob, something she later appeared on “This Morning” discuss. Schofe didn’t mince words with her and she said she was relentlessly trolled on social media because of her appearance on “This Morning”. She then called him a hypocrite when he complained about being dogpiled online in the wake of his big controversy, having – in her view – led similar dogpiles himself.

#2: Ben Shapiro

He’s another free speech warrior like Piers Morgan, but he couldn’t take the heat when he ended up in the hot seat against Andrew Neil. Neil’s rightwing politics are well-known in the UK and he doesn’t try to hide that, but when conducting interviews, he always takes the opposite position to his guests because it makes for better journalism. Shapiro, however, didn’t know the first thing about Neil, accusing him of being a leftist because he quizzed Shapiro on some of his political beliefs. Shapiro got so cross he ended the interview, only to have to apologise online when it became clear he’d misunderstood Neil’s standard interview technique. You’d think a seasoned debater like Shapiro would understand devil’s advocate.

#1: Russell Brand

We already talked about Piers Morgan himself, but in this clip from “Uncensored”, he managed to humiliate Russell Brand without saying a word. After a tense interview over Brand’s ongoing legal woes, he asked Brand to talk about his recent turn to Christianity, and which Bible verses he’s found solace in as he awaited his trial. A full two minutes of Brand awkwardly flipping through the Bible trying to find a particular verse followed, while Piers sat there in complete silence. He was presumably well aware that Brand looking like he’s never opened a Bible in his life is ratings gold, and it was, shattering Brand’s current image as a born-again Christian living in Florida.

Let us know in the comments which hypocritical clips we missed.