Kay Burley clashed with Tory leadership hopeful Robert Jenrick this morning as he attacked the record of Keir Starmer’s government.
The Sky News presenter said she could not “get a word in edgeways” as she tried to quiz the former minister on his plans for the Conservatives.
Jenrick is vying with Kemi Badenoch, Priti Patel, Mel Stride, Tom Tugendhat and James Cleverly to succeed Rishi Sunak as Tory chief.
On Sky News Breakfast, he slammed Labour for agreeing pay deals with public sector unions while also scrapping the winter fuel payment for 10 million pensioners.
He said: “The political choices that they have made in just 53 days are bad choices and they’re doing these on the back of middle class people, because they’re about to break their promises and hike taxes this autumn, and on the backs of our pensioners.”
Jenrick went on: “I don’t think it’s the right decision to increase pay for people who are relatively well off in our country, like train drivers, to the tune of £10,000 a year, in order to pay off your union paymasters and in return to remove the winter fuel payments from pensioners.”
As Burley tried to ask him another question about strike action, Jenrick kept talking, prompting the presenter to say: “If I could get a work in edgeways ... would you not accept that strike action is costing more than what the train drivers received in their pay increase?”
But Jenrick pointed out that rail union Aslef had announced fresh strike action just two days after agreeing a pay deal with the government.
Elsewhere in the interview, Jenrick was reluctant to say that Sunak was “a good prime minister”.
The former minister - who quit Sunak’s frontbench over his approach to the Rwanda scheme - said: “I think Rishi was a very decent man who was a friend of mine who worked extremely hard, and we have much to be proud of over the last 14 years in office, despite what Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are doing in trying to re-write history.”