The mistake happened in the December 5 episode of the show.

Close up of Hannah Fry presenting Have I Got News For You
Hannah Fry hosted Have I Got News For You on December 5 (Image: BBC)

An inaccurate remark about former Prime Minister Boris Johnson in the most recent episode of Have I Got News For You, which aired on Friday December 5, received numerous complaints leading the BBC to issue an apology. Taking to the Corrections and Clarifications section of their website they penned the official mea culpa on December 9.

“A panellist, in responding to a question about Reform UK, stated that an individual who had recently made a multi-million pound donation to Reform UK had previously made a substantial donation to Boris Johnson and that later ‘Boris Johnson gave him an 80 million pound defence contract, allegedly’,” the statement read. “In January 2023, it was announced that the Ministry of Defence had awarded a contract of this size to a company in which the donor was a shareholder. However, since Mr Johnson held no position in Government at the time, it was incorrect to claim that the contract had been awarded by Mr Johnson. We apologise for this error,” they concluded.

The offending episode was presented by mathematician, author and broadcaster Professor Hannah Fry and featured panellists retired vicar Richard Coles and comedian Finlay Christie alongside team captains Ian Hislop and Paul Merton.

The broadcster needs to receive at least 100 complaints about an issue before they publicly post an apology.

This latest error comes just two months after another mistake saw an episode briefly pulled from the iPlayer for editing after presenter Victoria Coren Mitchell made a huge error regarding Labour’s plans to introduce digital ID cards.

The Only Connect host anchored the October 3 episode and in one segment, she asked the teams who would benefit from Keir Starmer’s decision to introduce the ID scheme, before telling them: “I was thinking of the company Multiverse, who has been chosen to run the digital ID cards scheme.” She said the company was founded by Tony Blair’s son Euan, joking: “That’s a happy coincidence, isn’t it?”

Close up of Boris Johnson walking in the wid with his hair blown asunder

Have I Got News for you have apologised for an inaccurate statement about Boris Johnson (Image: Getty)

But the claims were debunked by fact-checking company FullFact, which stated: “This isn’t true, according to both the government and Multiverse, which is an ‘upskilling company’, not a software developer.”

It added: “The government has not announced any partner for the project. It’s understood the government expects digital ID to be designed, built and run by an in-house team, not outsourced to external suppliers, although there has been some media speculation about whether the scheme may create opportunities for other tech firms.”

The information seemingly came from viral social media posts, but FullFact reports that there is “no evidence” of Blair’s son or the company being involved in the project, despite Tony Blair’s public advocation for the idea in the past. 

At the time a BBC spokesperson told Express.co.uk: “This week’s Have I Got News for You contained an inaccurate story about Euan Blair’s company, Multiverse, being chosen to develop the government’s contract to produce digital ID cards. Multiverse is not a software developer and there is no evidence of any involvement in the proposed digital ID scheme, therefore we have taken the episode off BBC iPlayer while we edit the relevant section out. We apologise for this unintentional editorial oversight.”