Piers Morgan today accused the Conservative Party of creating 'fake news' by editing down a Good Morning Britain interview for an election propaganda video.
The GMB host challenged Tory MPs about why the party had edited an interview with Labour's Keir Starmer and ‘changed the final editing’.
Piers and co-host Susanna Reid played both videos to demonstrate the stark difference between the two.
The original footage sees the shadow Brexit secretary answering the question about Labour’s stance on Europe, where as in the Tory edit he stares blankly at the camera while text comes up accusing the opposition of not having a plan.
Piers said: “What the Conservative Party is officially doing there is they are re-editing a piece of live television footage, to make it look like Keir Starmer, one of the leading lights of the Labour Party, was unable to answer a question, when in fact he answered it fluently.”
MP Johnny Mercer has already apologised on Twitter about the video and said he will remove the video, which he admitted had ‘inexplicably been doctored at the end’.
But despite this, Conservative Party chairman James Cleverly attempted to defend the clip, saying the party ‘needed to shorten the video’.
Mr Cleverly said: “In the whole of that exchange, to Keir Starmer, who is the shadow Brexit secretary, was unable to credibly explain Labour’s Brexit plan. That’s why we had to shorten the video.
“If people want to see the full video they can go to the full CCHQ twitter feed where the full video that you posted is available.”
When Piers pushed him and asked whether he accepts they ‘doctored’ the video, Mr Cleverley added: “We edited the video just like you edit stuff on your programme, just like everybody else, because we needed to shorten the video.”
Viewers took to Twitter to air their views.
One posted: “Great journalism by Piers Morgan, I’m not a supporter of Labour but I’m not a supporter of fake news either.”
A second said: “So you have James Cleverly defending it and fellow Tory MP being honest and admitting the error! I know which stance I have more respect for!”
A third added: “‘Edited the video to make it shorter’ - they ADDED a 7 second pause at the end?! I’m pretty sure they could have at least shown 7 seconds of his response if they needed to ‘shorten the video’. I just love politics.”
GMB airs weekdays from 6am on ITV.
