Activists have cut footage Line Of Duty together with clips of the prime minister so it seems like Boris Johnson is under interrogation – and the outcome is not to be missed.
The BBC drama tells the story of police officers working in the anti-corruption unit of the force, trying to weed out the “bent coppers” among them.
The clip has been released just as Johnson is facing a fresh wave of criticism over the government’s connections to Russian oligarchs.
Although the UK announced an additional 370 sanctions against Russians earlier this week, the backlash over the appointment of prime minister’s friend and the son of a former KGB officer, Evgeny Lebedev, to the House of Lords continues.
Led By Donkeys, a well-known activist group with a reputation for public stunts calling out politicians, released the heavily edited clip on Thursday.
It begins with the three main characters – DI Steve Arnott, DI Kate Fleming and Superintendent Ted Hastings – explaining that this interview is about “the Russian influence within your government” as well as “suspicious links” between the Tory Party and oligarchs.
Hastings (played by Adrian Dunbar) then repeats his famous phrase about “bent coppers” with a small twist: “I’m interested in one thing and one thing only – and that’s bent prime ministers.”
“We’re against supposed public servants having their heads turned by a fistful of roubles,” he said.
The Tory Party has received near £2 million in donations from people connected to Russia since Johnson became prime minister in 2019.
The clip also poked fun at Johnson’s recent claims that Britain is leading the way when it comes to tackling Russian influence in the UK, and the government’s apparent reluctance to publish the parliament report into Kremlin interference in Britain.
The video also claims that the prime minister was focused on giving Lord Lebedev a peerage when the rest of the UK was focused on Covid, back in March 2020.
The police officers then reprimand Johnson for not acting against Russia earlier.
They say, “we’ve known for years who Putin was,” referring to the Russian president’s history of military aggression and the Salisbury poisoning from 2018.
Hastings adds in a killer line towards the end of the clip too, saying: “Well prime minister, let me tell you, you may have already sold your soul to the devil, but by God, this country belongs to us not you. And this country is not for sale, not one inch of it!”
When approached by HuffPost UK, Led By Donkeys said, “we can neither confirm nor deny” when it comes to the additional voiceover work from the cast members.
Aside from old clips of the prime minister, the voiceover seems to include extra lines from Adrian, Martin Compston (who plays Arnott) and Vicky McClure (who plays Fleming) to make it seem more realistic.
This is the second video from Led By Donkeys which riffs off Line of Duty. The last one went viral in January and focused on the Partygate scandal, the name for all the parties which allegedly took place throughout the national lockdowns.
But when asked about whether she had taken part in that first viral spoof while she was a guest on the Graham Norton Show, Vicky said with a smile: “I can’t confirm or deny anything.”