London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 09, 2025

Prominent anti-vax activist Piers Corbyn takes MONOPOLY MONEY from fake vaccine investors in YouTube prank

Prominent anti-vax activist Piers Corbyn takes MONOPOLY MONEY from fake vaccine investors in YouTube prank

Anti-vaccine campaigner Piers Corbyn has been caught on camera by a pair of pranksters, accepting what he apparently understood was a bribe from AstraZeneca to shift his criticism from their vaccine to Pfizer and Moderna’s shots.

Piers Corbyn has become a regular fixture at anti-lockdown rallies in London over the last year, getting himself arrested on multiple occasions for breaching mask mandates and other Covid-related restrictions. He’s compared mass innoculation to the Holocaust, and picketed vaccination centres.

However, he’s apparently not above taking some cold, hard cash from the companies behind the jabs. YouTube pranksters Josh Pieters and Archie Manners recently posed as shareholders in AstraZeneca and scheduled a meeting with Corbyn at London’s trendy Sloane Square. There they feigned interest in Corbyn’s views and offered him financial support – as long as he criticized vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna instead of AstraZeneca.


In order to film the prank legally, the pair actually invested in AstraZeneca, purchasing a solitary share in the vaccine firm.

Corbyn called the cash offer “brilliant” and accepted it, but stated that he would only do so “as long as I can accept it with no insistence on any policy changes or anything that I’m doing.”

Manners told Corbyn that they were “not asking for a change in policy or anything but if there is anything that could be done to focus a bit on Pfizer or Moderna... that would be a useful thing.”

Corbyn seemingly agreed, saying that he was planning on focusing on the other vaccines anyway, and wrote down some perceived benefits of AstraZeneca’s vaccine relative to Pfizer and Moderna’s, and took the money, but only after Pieters and Manners staged a distraction and swapped the envelope containing £10,000 for another containing Monopoly money.

“If people ask where has this come from I’ll say... it’s a businessman who runs restaurants,” Corbyn suggested.

Piers Corbyn himself explained his side of the story on Saturday, stating that he “burst out laughing” once he realized he was the victim of a “skillful” prank. He admitted that he “perhaps naively” took the cash, but claimed that the pranksters would “take clips of conversation to make it look like something.”


However, his explanation was drowned out amid ridicule online.




It remains unclear whether the prank would turn off Corbyn’s supporters, some of whom have continued to defend the activist and question the motivation of the pranksters in online threads.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×