Have I Got News for You Producer Attacks BBC Over Victoria Beckham Joke Cut
The producer behind Have I Got News for You says the BBC has wasted public money by censoring a joke about Victoria Beckham.
Jimmy Mulville, founder of Hat Trick, the independent company that makes the long-running comedy panel show, criticised the ruling in a statement shared with Deadline. His complaint was blunt. The process took too long and punished a joke that did not need punishing.
The joke came from host Katherine Ryan. The BBC's Executive Complaints Unit, the in-house team that judges audience complaints, ruled that her gag comparing Beckham to a "c**t" was editorially unjustified. That is BBC language for material with no clear editorial reason to keep in.
The case started small. Two viewers complained, calling the line "gratuitously offensive". That triggered an investigation that ran for almost a year. Two complaints. Months of paperwork.
The outcome was formal. The unit ordered the joke to be removed. The episode was then edited and re-uploaded to iPlayer, the BBC's streaming service, without the remark. The ruling was also reported to senior leaders in BBC content.
Mulville called the near year-long inquiry a "total waste of the licence fee", the annual fee paid by UK households to fund the BBC. He also blamed what he described as the BBC's "paranoia about causing offence." He said Ryan and Beckham had exchanged Instagram messages about the remark to put it in its intended context.
Have I Got News for You is built around jokes about the week's news, with two teams of guests answering questions and trading gags. Hat Trick has produced it for decades as an outside supplier, meaning the BBC buys the show in but sets the editorial rules.
The row follows earlier tension over political jokes. In August, Mulville said the BBC had grown "nervous" about jokes involving Donald Trump, in comments reported by Deadline.
What makes this stand out is the scale of the response. A two-person complaint led to a formal ruling, an edit and a note to bosses. For viewers catching up, this means the version now on iPlayer plays on without the gag that started it all.
