A BBC Question Time audience member has branded Rishi Sunak’s government “appalling” after failing to draw a line under the “shambles” of Liz Truss.
The corporation’s flagship political programme, which came from Swindon this week, heard the woman’s disgust at the end result of calls to give the new prime minister a chance for sake of a healthy “two-party system”.
Her diatribe culminated in outrage at controversial backbencher Lee Anderson – who this week backed the return of the death penalty – being made deputy Tory party chairman.
George Freeman, the government minister appearing on the show, had defended Anderson’s appointment as the party needed to reflect the diverse range of views in the country.
The audience member said: “I just find it absolutely astounding, actually, that you are sitting here and even legitimising this promotion.
“One of the overwhelming sentiments that came out of the shambles that was the Liz Truss administration, one of the arguments against giving the electorate the general election that polling was showing they were absolutely screaming out for, was that actually the Tory party would have been decimated and there would have been no effective opposition.
“And the idea was that even the Tory backbenchers were saying that Rishi Sunak should have time to correct the reputation of the party, pull things back together, because we do work in a two-party system.
“Since that time we have seen the home secretary peddling dangerous right-wing rhetoric. We have seen Jonathan Gullis shouting abuse across the floor to vulnerable abducted children. And now with the promotion of Lee Anderson as well.
“And the fact that anybody can sit there and defend that and be happy to sit in another round of musical chairs in the (cabinet), I just think is frankly appalling.”
Home secretary Suella Braverman claimed that it was her “dream” to send refugees to Rwanda, and described the current crisis of migrants arriving via the English Channel as an “invasion”.
Former schools minister Jonathan Gullis heckled a Labour MP about missing migrant children in the Commons, saying: “Well, they shouldn’t have come here illegally.”
Anderson said he would support the return of the death penalty because “nobody has ever committed a crime after being executed”.