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Clive Myrie was reportedly pulled from covering BBC News at Ten last Friday, June 16, after presenting Have I Got News For You and joking about Boris Johnson directly before.
The 58-year-old regularly guest presents the comedy panel, which airs at 9pm on Fridays and sees guests and comedian discussing the week’s news.
The latest episode began with Myrie saying: ‘After being found by the House of Commons committee to have lied repeatedly, Boris Johnson takes the opportunity to deny that he’s ever been jogging or has a dog.’
The quip came after the Privileges Committee published its highly-anticipated report, which stated the former Prime Minister committed ‘repeated contempts’ of Parliament with his Partygate denials.
And while it received a laugh from the studio audience, its now been revealed that the BBC replaced Myrie for Ten at News with Jane Hill ‘at the last minute’ after the corporation’s content chief Charlotte Moore was reportedly ‘concerned about potential impartiality accusations arising’.
‘There wasn’t a specific joke which triggered the request,’ a source added to The Times.
‘It was more to do with concerns that Clive was doing two very different types of programme within an hour of each other.
Clive Myrie was reportedly pulled from presenting the news (Picture: BBC)
He joked about Boris Johnson’s Partygate report (Picture: Leon Neal/Getty Images)
‘There was possibly a bit of over-caution, which felt a bit over the top to most people in news.’
A BBC executive added to the publication: ‘It didn’t feel right for Clive to go almost straight to the news when he’d just been making jokes.
‘It was a tonal thing rather than due to anyone being overly anxious.’
The BBC was involved in an impartiality debate earlier this year when Gary Lineker published a Tweet comparing the Home Office’s migrant boat policy to Nazi Germany.
While he received both praise and criticism, Lineker’s Tweet sparked intense debates over the broadcaster’s impartiality rules.
Gary Lineker sparked an impartiality debate earlier this year (Picture:Getty)
While the 62-year-old said that he stood by his social media post, it was revealed that he’d been asked to step back from presenting Match of the Day, with the likes of Alan Shearer and Ian Wright then standing by him in solidarity.
Lineker later returned to hosting duties on Match of the Day, while the broadcaster also announced a social media guidance review.
Following the reports Myrie was pulled from the news, Lineker Tweeted on Friday: ‘Oh for crying out loud! If the BBC invite @CliveMyrieBBC to present #HIGNFY the chances are there’ll be political jokes.’
Metro.co.uk has reached out to the BBC for comment.
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He wsa reportedly pulled ‘at the last minute’.