Oh dear. Things go from bad to worse for those involved with The Jeremy Kyle Show. Of course, when I say ‘oh dear’, I actually mean har har. We all know that the show was branded a “human form of bear bating” (still the greatest TV review ever) and now it seems that there are more evils lurking beneath the skin of the show.

Producers of the daytime show have denied that they plied an alcoholic guest with beer before he appeared on the programme. Peter Davies featured in a February episode of the show to discover why his father had excluded him from his will. He has since claimed that staff at the studio persisted in giving him alcohol and has insisted they were stirring him “up for a fight”. Davies told The Sun: “They basically wanted me to make a fool of myself – and that’s exactly what I did. I was half-cut by the time I went on stage. They knew I was an alcoholic and they should never have given me a drink.”

A spokesman for the ITV show insisted that they had not given Davies five cans of lager as he has claimed, and instead revealed they had given him “two small cups of weak lager over a two-and-a-half hour period to counteract alcohol withdrawal symptoms”.

To add to the woes of the programme, UFI has announced that it is cancelling its £500,000 per-year sponsorship. The organisation, which runs Learndirect, the Government’s adult education service, claimed that continuing with the deal would not “protect and enhance” its reputation. A spokesperson for the government’s communications body, the Central Office of Information (COI), explained: “The criticism of the show – sparked by Judge Alan Berg’s remarks earlier this week – means that both UFI and the COI consider it no longer appropriate for Learndirect to be associated with the programme.”