Youtubers who tricked Piers Corbyn tell LBC they're more 'sorry for those he's conning'

1 August 2021, 13:11

The pair posed as AstraZeneca investors and filmed Piers Corbyn accepting money to stop spreading misinformation about the jab.

Josh Pieters and Archie Manners are Youtubers who have gained fame for their notorious sting operations which have in the past, embarrassed celebrities and royal commentators.

They spoke to Tom Swarbrick after their latest prank, which showed antivax campaigner Piers Corbyn to be accepting money from what he thought were AstraZeneca investors in a bid to stop spreading disinformation about the vaccine and focus his vitriol on Pfizer and Moderna instead.

"The whole thing is just an embarrassing disaster," Tom said, wondering if the pair felt sorry for Mr Corbyn after the sting.

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"It's never our place to tell people they should or shouldn't be taking the vaccine, we just want to ensure that where people get their information from is from a good place," Mr Pieters replied.

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Mr Manners elaborated to state that the objective was to see whether Mr Corbyn "was a man of principle."

"It's not a particularly nice thing to do, to put him in the middle of a media firestorm but I feel a lot more sorry for those he's conning with extraordinary misinformation," he added.

"It's not very pleasant but maybe there's a bigger thing at play."

Tom noted that Mr Corbyn has claimed to have been "distracted" during the sting and the money was "placed" into his bag by Mr Pieters and Mr Manners.

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"What was his mood to you when you were offering the cash and saying you were investors in AstraZeneca?"

"He was absolutely thrilled" Mr Manners claimed.

Mr Pieters admitted to being nervous about "offering" the antivaxxer £10,000: "It was just about all of our money we had taken out so I was less happy about seeing the money than he was."

Mr Manners joked that if he got the switch wrong "it would have been a very expensive mistake."

After being asked whether supporters of Mr Corbyn have been in touch, Mr Manners admitted they "heard from a few of his supporters – the kind of people that think the Queen is a reptile have messaged us on Twitter – we're not, to be honest, deeply concerned about that."