Thick of It's Armando Iannucci lambasts UK press for Gordon Brown's Bigotgate scandal

Andrew Mickel4 May 2010

Armando Iannucci has hit out at the nature of the media coverage of Gordon Brown’s ‘bigotgate’ scandal in the UK press.

Writing in the Independent the director of political satire The Thick of It has drawn attention to the way in which many of the media's senior political commentators tried to contact him following the release of recorded comments in which The PM called Rochdale resident Gillian Duffy a bigot.

Iannucci said: “Every election has its FFS (For Fuck's Sake) moment. That's the point when normal politics is disrupted by an event so stupid it makes me swear at the telly a lot.

“I thought this election was going to be different. Then came Gordon Brown's Gillian Duffy moment…

“As the gleeful camera pointed live at Mrs Duffy's door while the PM held his economic summit with her, I slumped down in despair at the biggest FFS moment of the past 20 years.”

The director has accused the mainstream media of acting like ‘dyspeptic monkeys’ who were gleefully reporting on non-existent facts while calling the directors cell phone for a comment on the subject.

"There was something rather childish about the mobful of exultant voicemail messages left by hyper-ventilating journalists on my mobile, as BBC news programmes, daily newspapers, and Sky journos asked me to "do" a quick response to these events.

“It's at these moments that you stand back and see, not a nation debating its future, but a pack of shrieking gibbons.” Iannucci added.