‘That is sensational, the picture’s frozen!’: Government minister suffers embarrassing connection failure during media interview… in which he had been hailing rollout of gigabit-capable broadband across Britain
- DCMS minister Matt Warman suffers embarrassing loss of connection on LBC
- He had been using radio interview to hail rollout of gigabit-capable broadband
- Show host Nick Ferrari says: ‘This is handy as you’re the broadband minister’
A Government minister today suffered an embarrassing connection failure as he conducted a broadcast interview to hail the rollout of gigabit-capable broadband across Britain.
Matt Warman, a minister at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, was left red-faced after his line dropped out while he spoke to LBC radio.
Just moments earlier, Mr Warman had been speaking about the Government’s ‘huge progress’ in providing connectivity across the UK.
Radio host Nick Ferrari branded the minister’s technical glitch ‘senational’ as he noticed how Mr Warman’s picture had frozen during the interview.
He said: ‘This is handy as you’re the broadband minister. You can’t hear me, can you? That is sensational and the picture’s frozen.
‘So there we go, we’ve got the Government banging on about however many billon pounds’ worth it is of… gigabit and he can’t take the question.
‘You can’t hear me but I’ll be polite, Matt Warman, minister for digital, culture, media and sport, talking about the progress of broadband and the line collapses, but thank you for your time.’
Just moments before his connection cut out, DCMS minister Matt Warman had been speaking about the Government’s ‘huge progress’ in providing connectivity across the UK
Radio host Nick Ferrari branded the minister’s technical glitch ‘senational’ as he noticed how Mr Warman’s picture had frozen during the interview.
Mr Warman’s shortened appearance on LBC came in his series of broadcast interviews this morning to promote the Government’s £5billion ‘Project Gigabit’.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries visited North Dorset today – where work is kicking off on the first major contract under the scheme – to mark new data showing that 70 per cent of the UK is now benefitting from gigabit broadband coverage.
But the Government seems to have scaled down its commitment to the technology, with an aim to reach 85 per cent coverage by 2025.
This is despite the 2019 Tory manifesto promising to ‘bring full fibre and gigabitcapable broadband to every home and business across the UK’ by that date.
Asked if the PM was disappointed about breaking a manifesto pledge, a No10 spokeswoman said: ‘He remains committed to delivering better broadband coverage for the UK and we’ve seen an example of that today.’
Before his line cut out during his LBC interview, Mr Warman had told the station the proportion of people accessing gigabit-capable broadband had risen from nine per cent to 70 per cent in the last three years.
He said: ‘That is huge progress at a pace that was way above what we were hoping for when we set those targets in 2019, so really good news.
‘But of course there are still 30 per cent of people that we are working as fast as we possibly can to get to – and that pace shows that we’re going to get to them as quickly as we possibly can.’
Asked if the whole of the UK was connected, the minister replied: ‘Well, in some form, all bar the most remote properties are connected to broadband of some sort and satellite can mop up the rest, but there is a lot of work to do.
‘I’m not pretending anything else, but as I say, the pace that’s got us to where we are today is a huge sign of intent and the things that are to come… The vast majority of the… progress that we’re announcing today is coming from the private sector.’
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