Question Time audience members burst out laughing after a Tory minister claimed Rishi Sunak is doing “an incredibly good job”.
Alex Burghart made the comments after the panellists were asked whether the Conservatives should change leader once again.
Earlier this week, former cabinet minister Simon Clarke called on Tory MPs to oust Sunak amid mounting evidence that the party is heading for a heavy defeat at the general election.
But Cabinet Office minister Burghart told the BBC audience: “I think the truth is that Rishi Sunak has been doing an incredibly difficult job in very, very difficult circumstances.”
As members of the audience began to giggle, the MP pleaded: “Hear me out.”
Presenter Fiona Bruce then interrupted to ask him: “Why do you think people are laughing?”
Burghart replied: “I’m just going to finish what I’m saying. This has been one of the most challenging parliaments in any of our lifetimes.
“We’ve had the biggest health crisis in 100 years, we’ve had the first war in Europe since 1945, the biggest energy crisis since the 1970s, the highest inflation since the 1980s and it’s been tough.
“And do you know what? The [International Monetary Fund] says that the UK is going to grow faster than Japan, faster than Germany, faster than France, faster than Italy. Our economy is recovering, and one of the main reasons for that is Rishi Sunak.”
He added: “I think he has done a really good job in difficult circumstances, and I think when it gets to the election, when it’s about people having to decide who’s got a plan for the next five years, they’ll choose Rishi Sunak over Keir Starmer and the Labour Party, who quite frankly have no plan for the country at all.”
After his comments were met with an awkward silence, Bruce asked Burghart why that message was “not cutting through” with the audience.
“People were laughing at that,” she told him.
The MP said: “You’ll have to ask them. We’ve been in power a long time, we have had a lot to deal with, but I think when you look at where the country has been and where it’s going, it’s obvious that the right decisions have been made.”
But one member of the audience told Burghart “you would need to be pretty far removed to think that Rishi Sunak or this government have done well in the past five years, let alone the past 14 years, which has felt like a 14-year long episode of The Thick Of It.”