Good Morning Britain’s Ben Shephard forced to clarify guest’s comments after ‘defending’ watching porn in House of CommonsCydney Yeates

Good Morning Britain’s Ben Shephard was forced to clarify a guest’s comments after viewers believed he was defending watching porn in the House of Commons.

Quentin Letts joined Thursday’s programme and discussed the headlines that a Tory MP allegedly watched pornography on his mobile phone inside the chamber.

Journalist Quentin decided to play devil’s advocate while talking about the latest scandal at the heart of government, saying the House of Commons is very mundane and MPs aren’t always concentrating.

‘If you’ve ever been in the Houses of Parliament, it’s an extremely boring place,’ he told the presenters. ‘I think it would be wrong of viewers to think parliamentarians are constantly thinking about great matters at state when they’re in the House of Commons.

‘It’s not exactly like a church in there.’

He continued: ‘The politicians tend to represent the people of the country and there are a lot of grotty people in this country who get a kick out of pornography, and it’s always struck me as a pretty peculiar thing to do.’

Quentin Letts ignited backlash for his comments on the scandal (Picture: ITV)

Later on in the programme, Ben readdressed Quentin’s comments after viewers complained on social media.

‘I feel like everybody slightly got the wrong end of the stick,’ Ben said. ‘A lot of people seemed to be up in arms that you were defending watching porn in the House of Commons. That’s not what you were doing.’

‘That’s not quite what I was doing,’ Quentin replied.

‘I was trying to make the point that the House of Commons is a very boring place, but you should not watch porn, boys and girls.’

Viewers had hit out at Quentin’s remarks, with one writing: ‘WTF is Quentin on about trying to almost downgrade seriousness of the MP viewing Porn in the commons?’

A Tory MP allegedly watched pornography inside the House of Commons (Picture: Getty)

‘If you have to make an announcement to clarify the guest wasn’t supporting watching porn in Parliament perhaps get rid of the guest?’ another said.

Government chief whip Chris Heaton-Harris has launched an investigation after the allegations about the unnamed MP surfaced during a meeting of Tory MPs at Westminster on Tuesday.

It’s been reported that 56 MPs, including three Cabinet ministers, are facing allegations of sexual misconduct referred to the Independent Complaints and Grievances Scheme.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson told the Commons ‘sexual harassment is intolerable’ and ‘of course it is grounds for dismissal’ when asked about the MPs.

His aides insisted the Tory party does not have a problem with misogyny and sexism.

More: Good Morning Britain

The Prime Minister’s press secretary said: ‘You will have heard the PM address this explicitly in Parliament today and over the last few days, saying there is absolutely no place for such behaviour and this cannot be tolerated in any workplace.’

Good Morning Britain airs weekdays at 6am on ITV.

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