Rival breakfast news presenters Piers Morgan and Dan Walker have waded into round two of a row about their programmes.
Good Morning Britain anchor Morgan had tweeted his anger that Sir Michael Fallon had pulled out of an interview with him about the Grenfell Tower fire just hours before his scheduled appearance, labelling him “gutless”.
In an opening monologue on his ITV programme this morning, Morgan voiced his disgust that no one from the Government had agreed to come in and face his harsh style of questioning, claiming that they had gone for the easy option of BBC Breakfast with Walker instead.
He said: “Sir Michael Fallon agreed to come on this programme and then at the last minute, around midnight, he bottled it.
“He’s over on the BBC now, so if you want to get a load of nice soft balls to Michael Fallon, go and watch the BBC, be my guest – he should have been here answering tough questions about what the Government is doing to handle what I think is the worst disaster crisis we’ve had to deal with in decades.”
But Walker fought back about Morgan’s panning of his interview style on Twitter, writing: “Choices…a) watch a bloke moaning about not getting an interview b) watch the interview on @BBCBreakfast.”
Morgan, who presents the programme with former BBC Breakfast anchor Susanna Reid, replied with an attack on Walker’s credentials: “I think we all know why Govt. ministers prefer to be interviewed by a football presenter…”
The spat then escalated further.
One Twitter user following the argument suggested that the pair should take part in a charity boxing match, but Morgan responded that Walker would “just stand there politely waiting for me to punch him”.
Gary Lineker also aired his views on the row, making a football analogy when Morgan stated that Good Morning Britain was closing in on ratings winner BBC Breakfast, and also jokingly telling Walker to stick to football.
Walker and Morgan fell out via Twitter in February when the BBC Breakfast presenter asked if potential viewers were tuning in and Morgan tweeted back that they were all watching his programme instead.
The former CNN host also laid into Walker for not being known by his own bosses when he appeared on the programme with the wrong name caption.