BBC Breakfast stars halt show for breaking Starmer announcement but it takes awkward turn

BBC Breakfast presenters Naga Munchetty and Charlie Stayt halted the Saturday morning news programme for a Keir Starmer update.

The Prime Minister is currently in Samoa for a meeting of Commonwealth countries, and was taking questions from journalists.

Naga and Charlie had been hearing from Lyse Doucet, Chief International Correspondent about the situation in Israel and Iran.

Charlie said: "We're going to pause with you just a moment, as we're hearing from Keir Starmer, who is in Samoa and we can go straight to a press conference now."

The show then went briefly to Starmer discussing the Commonwealth but in an awkward blunder, it quickly came back to the studio, seemingly having cut across too early.

Charlie explained: "You're hearing from Keir Starmer there, he's just moving onto other issues in the Commonwealth, as it's end of the conf leaders discussion there," as he went back to Lyse.

Charlie then ended the segment as Naga said: "We'll return to the Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who is speaking in Samoa."

The show then cut back to Starmer, who in an awkward move, snubbed a question from BBC's political correspondent Chris Mason.

He asked Starmer whether he thought Israel's airstrikes to be proportionate, before adding a second question about what he thought businesses would say about being "clobbered for more tax".

Starmer responded: "On the question of the strikes, Israel does have the right to defend itself but we are urging all sides to show restraint, and that's why I am very clear Iran should not be responding to this, and those are really important messages of de-escalation everyone needs to heed.

"In regards to the budget, I'm not going to get drawn into the budget which is going to be laid out on Wednesday this week."

The interaction sparked reaction from viewers, as one said: "Chris mason just been ignored by Starmer," as another added: "Chris mason was shut down beautifully."