A Tory minister was left squirming after being told his party is “about as liked as a Fujitsu accounting machine.
The jibe - a reference to the Post Office Horizon IT scandal - by LBC’s Nick Ferrari came as the opinion polls continue to show the Conservatives languishing well behind Labour.
The radio presenter asked Treasury minister Gareth Davies: “Why do you suppose the Conservatives are about as liked as a Fujitsu accounting machine?”
A clearly-flustered Davies replied: “Well, er, polls come and go as you know.”
But Ferrari told him: “They’re only going one way here, Mr Davies, and they’re going consistently down.”
The minister said: “Well, look, I’m not naive. Obviously we’d like the polls to look differently than they are today, and I am very confident that they will as we go into a general election.
“But what we are focused on is that we stick with our plan for managing the economy.”
Ferrari told him: “But it’s not working, is it? This is insanity. If week in, week out, the polls continue to go one way, it would be akin to a football team playing the same formation every single time and every Saturday when they troop off the pitch, they’ve lost.
“You say ‘we’re going to stick to the plan’. Clearly, for whatever reason, it’s not resonating with the voters. Doesn’t there need to be a change of plan?”
But the minister said that by sticking to the plan, inflation had come down from 11% to 4% and taxes are being cut.
He added: “This year we are turning a corner on the economy and people will feel better because earnings are up, inflation is down and we are able to put in place the measures that will focus on growing the economy over the decade to come.”