ITV director grilled over Phillip Schofield row and gets mocked by MP who quotes Holly and asks ‘are you ok?’
AN ITV boss has been mocked in Parliament over the Phillip Schofield scandal – with an MP asking: “Are you ok?”
The broadcaster’s director of strategy Magnus Brooke was caught off guard as he faced a grilling on the rumbling saga at This Morning.
Referencing Holly Willoughby’s statement yesterday, SNP MP John Nicholson kicked off by asking if he was “ok”.
Willoughby had opened her first show without Schofield by telling viewers: “Right, deep breath. Firstly, are you OK? I hope so.”
Appearing before the Commons Culture Committee, a taken-aback Mr Brooke replied that he was “fine”.
The ITV honcho also slapped down This Morning editor Martin Frizzle for appearing to shrug off claims of “toxicity” at the popular daytime show – instead ranting about aubergines.
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Mr Brooke said: “I wouldn’t endorse what he said… [it was] extremely ill-judged to say what he did.
“I can reassure you on behalf of ITV that we do take all of these allegations very seriously precisely because we do have a culture where people’s conduct matters enormously.”
He notably did not answer whether Mr Frizzle was safe in his job.
This Morning has been plunged into crisis following Schofield’s dramatic resignation and subsequent revelation of a previous affair with a young male runner.
Asked if he was happy with the duty of care at the company, Mr Brooke said: “We have a very significant system of safeguarding and duty of care at ITV with a very significant set of policies.
“We have a code of conduct, which sets out our expectations about how people behave… and then we have an important set of requirements that hold people to account internally.”