A BBC broadcaster told a Tory minister that voters just “don’t like” his party, despite backing some of their election campaign pledges.
Today programme presenter Justin Webb delivered the brutal message as he grilled work and pensions secretary Mel Stride.
He suggested that the “vibe” among members of the public is that after 14 years, they are sick and tired of the Conservatives government.
Webb told Stride: “There’s a poll in The Times today that suggests actually people quite like your policies. They quite like the national service idea too, people aren’t objecting to the policies - they just don’t like you.”
After Stride acknowledged that the Tories were “definitely behind in the polls”, Webb said: “But for a kind of vibe reason and that’s the difficulty. You come out with these policies and people have just decided.”
Stride said: “The only poll that matters is on the day of the general election. There are a lot of people, I think, who are undecided and now want to really look at what’s on offer from the two parties.”
The minister was also skewered as he tried to make political capital over the row within Labour over whether Diane Abbott should be allowed to stand as one of the party’s election candidates.
Stride said: “If [Keir Starmer] can’t sort out Diane Abbott, how’s he going to sort out Vladimir Putin?”
But Webb hit back: “Since you bring up Vladimir Putin, he invaded Crimea in 2014 and we then reacted by cutting defence spending, so they could legitimately come back and say when it comes to standing up to Putin, you haven’t got an ideal track record.”