The BBC has removed the latest episode of Have I Got News for You from iPlayer after host Victoria Coren Mitchell made a factual error about a government contract. During the show on October 3, Coren Mitchell incorrectly claimed that Labour would pay Multiverse, a company owned by Tony Blair's son Euan, to deliver a new digital ID card scheme. She described this as a 'happy coincidence'.
The government has since issued a statement denying the claim. A spokesperson for the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology said: 'Claims that Multiverse has been chosen to develop the Government’s digital ID app are false. No decisions have been made on its delivery, but we expect it to be designed, built, and run by in-house Government teams - not outsourced to external suppliers.'
Fact-checking organisation FullFact also confirmed the claim was false. The BBC apologised, stating: 'This week’s Have I Got News for You contained an inaccurate story about Euan Blair’s company, Multiverse, being chosen to develop the government’s contract to produce digital ID cards. Multiverse is not a software developer and there is no evidence of any involvement in the proposed digital ID scheme, therefore we have taken the episode off BBC iPlayer while we edit the relevant section out.'
