George Osborne has taken a swing at Theresa May, saying: “The worst thing she’s done in her life is no longer running through a wheat field.”
With a shock exit poll predicting that the Conservative Party would fail to win a majority, Osborne criticised May for a “terrible manifesto and a wooden campaign”.
Since the former chancellor - who was unceremoniously ousted from his role during Theresa May’s 2016 cabinet shuffle - stepped down as a Tory MP in April, he has repeatedly made digs at his former colleagues.
He used his very first front page as editor of the London Evening Standard to take a swing at May, focussing on how the European Parliament’s chief Brexit negotiator had mocked May’s “strong and stable” election slogan.
But few were prepared for his repeated “brutal” attacks on the Tories throughout ITV News’ election night coverage.
‘Catastrophic election’
Grinning Osborne started off the night as he meant to go on - by sticking the knife in.
Reacting to the shock exit poll which predicted the Tories would fail to win a majority, the former chancellor said the outcome of the election could be “completely catastrophic for the Conservatives and Theresa May”.
Adding that the results would be on “a real knife edge”, he said it was “difficult to see how the party would put together a coalition”.
‘One of the worst manifestos in history’
Continuing his attack on his former party, Osborne later turned his attention to the Tory manifesto, a “total disaster” which he said May had drafted with “about two other people”.
“It will go down now as one of the worst manifestos in history by a governing party,” he said.
“I say one of the worst, I can’t think of a worse one.”
Osborne continued: “They called an election, they said it was about Brexit, everyone knew it was about trying to grab a bigger majority.”
“Say what you really think George, honestly,” the ITV News presenter laughed.
Fields of wheat
Early on Friday morning, Osborne took another direct dig at May.
As ITV showed footage of the Tory leader’s car driving back to London after attending the count in her Maidenhead constituency, the Evening Standard editor joked: “The worst thing she’s done in her life is no longer running through a wheat field.”
In a cringe-worthy interview earlier this week, May was asked about the naughtiest thing she had done as a child.
Sparking widespread ridicule, the Prime Minister responded: “Well, nobody is ever perfectly behaved, are they? I mean, you know, there are times when... I have to confess, when me and my friend, sort of, used to run through the fields of wheat.”
“The farmers weren’t too pleased about that,” she added.