Trying to win a phone-in competition on telly these days is a bit like trying to steal Superman’s cape whilst simultaneously pissing into the wind. You don’t stand a chance. After the Richard & Judy You Say We Pay farce, it seems that every show ever has been fleecing us out of our hard earned pennies. Of course, it’s easiest to blame the presenters of the show… but it’s hardly their fault. They spend most of their time on auto-pilot while some producers yells in their ear-piece.

Well, the latest robbing swines are Blue Peter. Yes, have a good gasp! That wholesome show that famously loves the kiddies so much that they teach them how to make their own toys and sends it’s presenters up Nelson’s Column to die in the name of light entertainment are really just a bunch of thieving gets who are misusing the trust that they’ve gained after three thousand years on the box.

The show is normally associated with sticky-back plastic and offering Blue Peter badge holders the chance to get into Bognor’s World of Photocopiers for free. Now however, BBC children’s institution has  had to hold up its hands and admit that rigging results of a phone-in competition have been going on.

The show confessed to fixing a contest in aid of its annual charity appeal in a programme last November after a "technical hitch" hit the Whose Shoes competition (which saw callers being asked to guess the identity of a mystery celebrity by looking at some shoes). So, some poor researcher, who believed that no-one was getting through on the phone-lines, decided to think on their feet and grabbed a girl on a studio tour and asked her to stand in as the winner. She was put on the phone and on air. She knew the answer and was rewarded with the toys on offer as a prize.

The Guardian reported how the BBC shifted into damage limitation mode yesterday with Richard Deverell, controller of BBC Children’s Television, saying: "The decision to put a child on air in this way was a serious error of judgment." Blue Peter presenter Konnie Huq last night told viewers: "We’d like to apologise to you because when this mistake happened we let you down." MPs have also hopped on the badwagon, spitting "When it’s reached the point that even Blue Peter has been implicated in this sorry mess, then I think it’s fair to say there has been a serious failure with the regulator," said Lib Dem culture spokesman Don Foster.

[Mof Gimmers]