Boris Johnson has been accused of trying to escape scrutiny by shutting down parliament – but during his visit to Yorkshire on Friday, people were having none of it.
Case in point? BBC presenter Steph McGovern’s brutal takedown of the prime minister at an event in Rotherham after it emerged earlier this week he had once described David Cameron as a “girly swot” – a comment critics branded sexist.
With Johnson having just given a speech about transport in the north, the BBC Breakfast journalist – who was hosting the event – took to the stage.
“Thank you very much there to our Northern Powerhouse minister and the prime minister there. Can you just put your hands together to say thanks to them?,” she addressed the audience.
“I’d just like to point out – I am a girly swot and I’m proud of it. Let’s see who’s in their job the longest.”
Ouch. Need some aloe vera for that burn, PM?
In a tweet after the event, McGovern described her comment as a “light-hearted remark”.
“Sorry that this caused offence to some. That was absolutely not my intention.”
But McGovern wasn’t the only one to throw shade at Johnson during his trip.
“Maybe get back to parliament. Yeah?” an angry man in the audience told Johnson.
“Why are you not with them [MPs] in parliament sorting out the mess that you have created? Why don’t you sort it out, Boris?”
“People have died because of austerity, and then you’ve got the cheek to come here and and tell us that austerity’s over and it’s all good now – we’re gonna leave the EU and everything’s going to be great,” a woman told the PM.
“It’s just a fairytale.”
She added: “Doncaster have had no funds from central government.”
“Every year there’s less money for Doncaster, and you have the cheek to come here.”
Doncaster is in fact one of the towns set to benefit from the government’s £3.6 billion regeneration fund.
Johnson told the woman: “Well actually, we’re putting a lot of investment into public services.”