Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield troll critics by 'breaking' social distance on This Morning

This Morning hosts Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield appeared to break social distance live on air on Monday

This Morning viewers were left startled at the start of Monday's show as hosts Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby appeared to break social distancing to present the show.

Like other high profile TV hosts, Holly and Phillip have rigidly stuck to guidelines from the outset of the pandemic, apart from the well publicised time she had a momentary lapse and instinctively rushed to help him during a live challenge.

Unlike Ant and Dec, who have revealed they were in a 'cohort' which allows them to be close to each other, the This Morning presenters are always seated well apart from each other in the studio and even resorted to using a plastic cuddle curtain a few weeks ago to hug each other.

So, especially given the strict new rules that came into force hours before they went live, it came as a bit of a shock to see Holly and Phillip side by side as cameras rolled.

Kicking things off and revealing things weren't quite as they seemed, Phillip explained: "Finally after six long months Holly and I are sitting together side by side.

"Ah sort of, however, our very clever team."

Having a dig at their online critics, he continued: "We should leave it for just a couple of seconds so Twitter can get really angry. We will give you just enough time to complain on Twitter."

As the real camera angle revealed her and Phillip to actually be sitting well apart, Holly added: "'Our very clever team have worked their magic and managed to get rid of that two metre gap, look this is where we really are, to bring us virtually together isn't that nice?"