GMB guest goes missing as empty living room is aired after awkward blunder

Good Morning Britain hosts Ben Shephard and Susanna Reid were left stunned today after a guest went AWOL during a debate.

Instead, an empty living room was aired as Ben admitted that they were trying to find out where he was.

Daily Mail columnist Andrew Pierce had been due to appear on the ITV programme alongside the Mirror's Kevin Maguire.

But Ben announced ahead of the debate: "We're trying to track down Andrew Pierce, he's gone AWOL somewhere."

Susanna joked: "Is he trying to sort out the row between the EU and the AstraZeneca vaccine?"

Ben Shephard explained that the GMB guest had gone missing (ITV)

"What is going on?" Ben asked as the camera panned to an empty living room. "He'll emerge in fine style, undoubtedly."

He finally did appear on camera and admitted that he had suffered some technical issues.

During the debate, Susanna and Ben spoke to Dr Rachel Clarke, who said that she was "sickened" after hearing Prime Minister Boris Johnson say that he "did everything he could" earlier this week.

An empty living room aired on GMB (ITV)

The GMB stars continued without Andrew Pierce (ITV)

Asked how it was at work during the second wave, Dr Clarke told hosts Ben Shephard and Susanna Reid: "It's heartbreakingly bad now, it's so much worse than the first wave.

"Staff are running on empty, they're broken. They have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from the first time round, sometimes colleagues can express suicidal thoughts this time round because it's so hard.

"The hospitals are full to breaking point. Often the patients seem younger and at times we have patients in their 20s and 30s in intensive care. Pregnant women are intensive care with no other illnesses, just coronavirus.

"Sometimes we will see three generations - a grandparent, a mum and a son - all of them in intensive care. They mixed at Christmas and literally three generations you see them die, one after the other and that is unimaginably bad.

"Before Christmas, we were screaming from the rooftops, 'Please lock down properly' and it didn't happen so here we are now with nearly 100,000 deaths in Britain, an unimaginable number. I think part of the trauma for staff is this feeling that it didn't need to be like that."

*Good Morning Britain airs weekdays at 6am on ITV