A Sky News anchor made a quite the verbal slip-up while introducing her programme and touching on the latest Westminster chaos last night.
Speaking on Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge, the lead presenter accidentally swapped the word “bricks” for the curse word “pricks” when talking about former Tory MP Lee Anderson’s defection to Reform UK.
She began: “Tonight, one of the Conservatives’ most prominent MPs from the 2019 intake, Lee Anderson, defects to Reform UK.
“He is one of the last pricks” – at which point Ridge realised her mistake, interrupted herself with a small laugh, but still pushed on without a stutter or a correction – “of the so-called Tory red wall to crumble away.”
In case you need a recap, Anderson was once a Labour councillor who defected to the Conservatives in 2018.
He was elected as the Tory MP for the previous Labour stronghold in Ashfield in 2019.
Anderson then made national news when he announced he was joining the right-wing Reform UK on Monday – making him the party’s first ever MP.
It came after an already tumultuous 2024 for Anderson.
He quit as the deputy chair in January over the Rwanda bill and lost the Tory whip in February because he refused to apologise for claiming “Islamists” have “got control of” London mayor Sadiq Khan.
His defection came as yet another blow to Rishi Sunak.
There were already concerns that voters will shift away from the Tories and towards Reform in the next general election.
Anderson’s shift in allegiance has also sparked additional fears that more Tory MPs could follow suit.
The backbencher was already a well known figure even before this flurry of interest in him, and has regularly caused a stir with his outlandish comments.
He once said asylum seekers should “fuck off back to France” if they do not like the Bibby Stockholm vessels, claiming the BBC was a “safe haven for perverts” and – most famously – said food banks are not necessary because people can cook meals for 30p a day.
Still, Ridge’s prime-time slip-up on her 7pm show did not go unnoticed on X (formerly known as Twitter)....