Suella Braverman got more than she bargained for when she presented on LBC on Monday.
The former home secretary – and, until recently, a Tory leadership hopeful – was met with a wave of frustration from the public calling in to the broadcaster while she was hosting James O’Brien’s usual show.
At one point, the Conservative MP said: “I talk about the deficit, I’m very proud of our record on the deficit – it was 10% in 2010, it’s now on 1.9%.
“That’s because of prudent decisions on public spending.”
However, one caller named Peter said: “I’m not blaming you personally, but I think it does say something about the financial understanding of many of Tory representatives.
“The debt has been going up consistently and the debt won’t fall until the deficit is negative, even with the current level of deficit, the debt is rising.”
He added that Labour will blame the Tories for what they’ve done to the economy, saying: “I think they have every right to.”
He continued: “But don’t forget that for 14 years, throughout that period of government, the Conservative government was blaming Labour for creating an economic disadvantage for them.
“There does come a point where your arguments become vacuous. You’ve got to take responsibility for your own actions.
“The state of the economy is very much a Conservative problem.”
The doctor then said the Tories’ test and trace programme for Covid was “badly handled” and a “waste of £30 billion”, and claimed the cost of Brexit was running “possibly to hundreds of billions of pounds”.
“What the Labour government has been doing has been trying to put right a severe injustice that has been inflicted on the medical profession and the health service as a whole,” he concluded.
Another caller also told Braverman she was full of “joy” that the “most corrupt, cruel, evil party” are no longer in power.
She said she thought Starmer had done a “fantastic job” after just 50 days in office.
Braverman told her she accepted the Conservatives had made mistakes, but claimed the public must be “clear-eyed” about Labour’s promises from during the election campaign – and deflected the conversation by claiming she thinks the government will be raising taxes later.
A different disgruntled member of the public even accused Braverman for “abusing” her former role as home secretary through her divisive language – but she said that was “over simplistic” to blame her for “stirring up any trouble” in UK society.
Braverman made headlines when she once described the arrival of asylum seekers to British shores as “an invasion”.