News and other Busyness

FUKD On Cake

Two MPs made ‘laughing stock' by spoof drug outrage

Squall 15, Summer 1997, pg. 7.

The Independent Television Commission only partially upheld the complaints of two Conservative MPs in May, after the MPs were fooled into making confident statements about a non-existent drug.

David Amess (Con MP Southend West) and Sir Graham Bright (ex-Con MP Luton South) claimed that Chris Morris had "trivialised" the drugs issue by duping them into talking about the dangers of a new danger drug called ‘Cake’.

The two MPs were more than willing to make alarmist statements about the danger of ‘cake’ - shown to them as a huge yellow tablet the size of a dinner plate and as thick as a yellow pages - despite never having heard of the drug.

David Amess even tabled a parliamentary question about the new drug from Czechoslovakia, receiving a response from a government department saying they were aware of the situation and had it under review.

He also appeared on the programme wearing a T-shirt adorned with the abbreviations of a spoof anti-drug campaign group called Free the United Kingdom from Drugs (F.U.K.D).

The Independent Television Commission (ITC) ruled that the two MPs had indeed been "fooled" by Chris Morris, but that the programme had not "trivialised" drugs. Unusually, the ITC actually complemented the programme under investigation, describing it as "amusing and innovative".