FLOUNDERING Rishi Sunak was branded a liar and a “pound shop Farage” today as the Tory election campaign unravelled further.
The beleaguered Prime Minister was humiliated by members of the public on a radio phone-in as 14 years of Conservative failure came back to haunt him.
He was confronted by a young woman, Ellen, from east London who told him: “Everything about my future feels more uncertain after 14 years of Tory austerity.
“Housing is insecure and unaffordable. Tuition fees have risen. Public services like the NHS are crumbling. And you’ve now wasted 14 years taking absolutely no direct action.
“How could you possibly argue that life is better for young people?”
And she dismissed Mr Sunak’s reply, telling him that he was “lying through your teeth. You’ve had a decade-and-a-half to improve any of the issues that you talk about and you haven’t, and I think young people just don’t believe your promises any more.”
The Tory leader was also called out for mendacity by a woman from Bury, who asked why the number of foodbanks across the country had soared from 35 to 1,200 since 2010.
“I work in the health service. I work with children who are suffering daily. They aren’t able to eat,” she said.
“They’re expected to go to secondary school, primary school, with hardly any food. How, as a prime minister who is richer than the king, can you relate to any of our needs and struggles?”
She also dubbed Mr Sunak’s attempt to respond an “absolute lie” and also repeated that the Prime Minister, who is widely expected to flee to California with his money after the anticipated election defeat, is “richer than the king.”
And a gay man calling from Manchester slated the Premier’s lack of support for gay people and recalled insensitive comments made by Mr Sunak in the Commons on the day the house was being visited by the mother of Brianna Ghey, a young trans woman murdered in Warrington.
He said: “You’re obsessed with divisive culture wars. Personally, I think you’ve become a pound-shop Nigel Farage, and you’re not succeeding.”
Mr Sunak’s political fightback is now pivoting on the promise of more tax cuts to come, aided by the final return of inflation to its target of 2 per cent in figures released today.
But that was not enough to stop members of his own cabinet signalling despair.
Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride warned that Labour could be on the verge of the largest parliamentary majority in history.
Polling showed the Tories “a long way behind Labour and if you extrapolate that into a result, you could end up seeing a Labour government with 450 or 460 seats, the largest majority virtually in the history of this country.”
Unsurprisingly, a collection of essays published by leading political historian Anthony Seldon concludes that the last 14 years represent the worst government Britain has endured in its post-war history.
“It is hard to find a comparable period in history of the Conservatives which achieved so little, or which left the country at its conclusion in a more troubling state,” Mr Seldon and co-editor Tom Egerton write.
But nothing much may be about to change, according to Scottish National Party leader John Swinney.
He warned Scottish voters yesterday that “the Labour Party is going to pick up where the Tories left off with spending cuts and that will be a disastrous outcome for Scotland.”
