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Dominic Cummings: BBC apologises after presenter accidentally calls aide a ‘d***’ live on air

AFP via Getty Images
AFP via Getty Images

The BBC has said it “very much regrets” a live on-air blunder that saw one of its radio presenters accidentally call Dominic Cummings a “d***” while her microphone was still on.

When the blunder was made, Radio Ulster presenter Nuala McKeever was telling her colleagues what she feels about Boris Johnson’s chief advisor, who has dominated headlines in recent days for his rather loose interpretation of lockdown rules.

“I was thinking he was such a d***,” she said. “I had written his name as Richard Cummings. Freudian slip or what?”

McKeever, who is currently sitting in for Lynette Fay, had been waiting for the 3pm bulletin to end to begin her show.

BBC Northern Ireland issued an apology, stating: “The comments were not intended for broadcast and should not have been.

“This interruption to our news bulletin was the result of a technical error. We very much regret what happened and the upset caused.”

Cummings’s decision to drive 260 miles from London to Durham during the height of lockdown has provoked huge outrage among the public in recent days.

The strategist’s claim that he drove from his parents’ farm to Castle Barnard to “test his eyesight” has also been the subject of much derision online.

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