Victoria Coren Mitchell ridicules ‘jaw-dropping’ Have I Got News For You error after backlash

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Quiz show host, Victoria Coren Mitchell, has shared a tongue-in-cheek remark about a major blunder from Friday night’s Have I Got News For You.

In the episode, which aired on October 3, Coren Mitchell, 53, read out a false claim that the company Multiverse had been chosen to run the government’s new digital ID scheme.

This false claim was later debunked by fact-checking organisation, FullFact, who said: ‘This isn’t true, according to both the government and Multiverse, which is an “upskilling company”, not a software developer.

‘The government has not announced any partner for the project,’ the organisation stated.

The BBC confirmed to Metro that the episode had been taken down from iPlayer while the relevant section was edited out, before the episode was put back up on iPlayer.

Coren Mitchell has now poked fun at the gaffe, writing on X ahead of the next episode of the programme airing today: ‘Only Connect is on tonight! And, *as far as I know*, all the facts I read out will be correct. But I guess we’ll soon find out.’ 

Victoria Coren Mitchell has made light of the false claim from Have I Got News For You (Picture: BBC/Hat Trick) Coren Mitchell joked about the mistake on X (Picture: X/@VictoriaCoren)

One X user called @Oneless responded: ‘If only everyone took this approach to making mistakes (even if it wasn’t actually yours) rather than doubling down and pretending it’s the rest of the world that’s wrong.’

David Lee added: ‘And if one turns out to be incorrect… will someone have news for you!’

Another user, @LJRoberts09, said: ‘Balls to it. It was a great episode of HIGNFY and all the better for you hosting it.’

Coren Mitchell has hosted Only Connect since 2008. It’s a quiz show in which the contestants have to guess the connection between what originally appear as unrelated clues.

Only Connect invites contestants to work out the connection between seemingly unrelated clues (Picture: BBC/Remarkable Entertainment/Rory Lindsay)

During the episode on Friday in which the mistake was made, there was a segment where the teams were told that Multiverse running the government’s new digital ID scheme would benefit Tony Blair’s son, Euan, who is CEO of the startup. 

After this claim about Multiverse was debunked, Coren Mitchell wrote on X: ‘Meanwhile, if you see a clip of me saying the ID card contract has gone to Tony Blair’s son: it hasn’t.

‘That was something I was given to ask about last night, but turns out to be incorrect. Which is bad news for the fact checkers but good news for social mobility.’

The episode is now back on iPlayer (Picture: BBC)

At the time, James O’Malley took to BlueSky to call out the error ‘jaw-dropping’.

In its statement to Metro, a spokesperson for the BBC apologised for ‘unintentional editorial oversight.’ 

The Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology also confirmed the statement from the satirical panel show was false. A spokesperson told Metro: ‘Claims that Multiverse has been chosen to develop the government’s digital ID are false.’

They added: ‘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.’

Have I Got News For You airs at 9pm on Friday on BBC One.

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