(Day before) Yesterday in Parliament! BBC Radio 4 listeners are baffled as Today programme replays Wednesday’s political highlights reel this morning – until mistake is spotted FOUR MINUTES later
- People were baffled when they heard Matt Hancock talking about vaccine rollout
- But the presenters Justin Webb and Martha Kearney failed to notice the blunder
- The wrong clip was played for four minutes from 6.40am to 6.44am this morning
- It was abruptly stopped and Webb awkwardly said: ‘Oh! Goodness! How strange’
BBC Radio 4’s Today programme aired the wrong segment for Yesterday in Parliament this morning – and took four minutes to notice.
Listeners were left baffled when the slot opened with Health Secretary Matt Hancock hailing the dishing out of the Covid vaccine, which happened on Tuesday.
But presenters Justin Webb and Martha Kearney failed to spot the blunder and the clip was played from 6.40am to 6.44am.
It was then abruptly stopped and Mr Webb awkwardly said: ‘Oh! Goodness! How very strange. That suddenly stopped. Yeah.’
Presenters Justin Webb and Martha Kearney (pictured) failed to notice the blunder and the clip was played from 6.40am to 6.44am
He continued: ‘Oh, apparently it was the wrong…. It was the wrong day. That’s actually worse than giving you the wrong weather forecast which, frankly, I think in the past we used to do quite regularly.
‘Anyway, apparently we brought you the wrong Yesterday in Parliament, so it wasn’t Yesterday in Parliament, it was the day before Yesterday in Parliament. How absolutely fascinating.
‘I know you’re gonna accuse me of saying this with hindsight, but I had a slight feeling when it started that I’d heard it all before.
‘But I thought it was just my extraordinarily detailed reading of the papers. Anyway we can give you the headline, which genuinely is this morning’s headline, I promise you that.’
Listeners were less forgiving however, with Barry Sheerman MP tweeting: ‘Quite extraordinary as @BBCr4today play the day before yesterday in Parliament!’
European Central Bank official Michael Steen posted: ‘Interesting new ”the day before yesterday in parliament” feature on @BBCr4today. Is this what they call slow news?’
Lib Dem spokesman on home affairs in House of Lords Brian Paddick put: ‘BBC flagship @BBCr4today has a new feature: ‘The Day Before Yesterday in Parliament’ (They played the wrong recording!)’.
Another man wrote: ‘Had a proper #GroundhogDay moment there, when I turned on the radio and @BBCr4today were inadvertently playing the previous day’s ‘Yesterday in Parliament’!’
One social media user posted: ‘More proof of how 2020’s warped the space-time continuum.
‘BBC Radio 4 just accidentally played several minutes of The Day Before Yesterday In Parliament before anyone noticed.’
And another added: ‘This member of the audience realised as soon as Hancock opened his mouth you were playing the previous yesterday in Parliament… you really can’t get the staff nowadays.’
The correct clip for Yesterday in Parliament was played later in the programme.
A spokesman for the BBC said it was a result of human error and not caused by someone working from home.