Rishi Sunak’s beautiful failure admission in BBC Panorama interview

Rishi Sunak has admitted he’s failed on the NHS, housing and immigration as he was confronted over 14 years of broken Tory promises.

In a BBC interview, the PM was repeatedly challenged over the state of the country – as well as his decision to “bunk off” D-Day commemorations last week. Mr Sunak was forced to acknowledge it has become “harder” for people to own their first home under the Conservatives.

He also confessed that he had not delivered his pledge to cut NHS waiting lists and conceded immigration was “too high”. But as he tried to explain away his failings, he said: “No government gets everything right.”

As Mr Sunak claimed he would deliver on the promises if re-elected, BBC host Nick Robinson likened him to “a guy in a pub who borrows 50 quid” but always promises it will be repaid tomorrow.

Mr Sunak was also forced to defend calling a snap election before any flights to Rwanda had taken off, despite putting it at the heart of his plan to tackle small boat crossings. So far this year over 11,000 people have reached the UK by crossing the Channel.

After the PM conceded that no one has yet been sent to the African nation despite three years of Tory promises, Mr Robinson said: “When you say you’ve got a plan you sound to me like a guy in a pub who borrows 50 quid and he borrowed it three years ago and he keeps saying, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll pay you back’. And then when you confront him in the pub, he says, ‘I’ll pay you tomorrow,’ you wouldn’t believe him, would you?

“You’re constantly promising what you will do, but what you haven’t done so far.” And told that many viewers believe “nothing works in this country”, the PM responded: “I’ve been very clear in the past, no Government gets everything right, but I am proud of what has been achieved over 14 years, this election is also about the future.”

He claimed waiting lists are starting to go down, but admitted: “I’ve been very clear. We have not made as much progress on NHS waiting lists as I would have liked, and they have risen.”

Challenging Mr Sunak over his failure to bring down net migration – as promised by the Tories in 2019 – Mr Robinson said: “Last year 685,000 extra people came here. That’s twice the population of Coventry. You didn’t control our borders, did you?”

The PM replied: “No, the numbers are too high. I’ve been very clear about that, but people can judge me as well on what I’ve done as Prime Minister, where I’ve put in place the biggest, strictest reforms to bring down immigration that we’ve seen.”

On his failure to get flights to Rwanda in the air despite three years of promises, Mr Sunak said: “We got the numbers down by a third last year. That had never happened before, never ever. The numbers had just gone up and up and up until I became Prime Minister. The numbers were down by a third last year, so people can trust me.”

The PM told the BBC that owning a home has become more difficult in the time his party’s been in charge. He admitted: “It has got harder and I need to make sure it gets easier.”

Mr Robinson told the PM that the tax bill in the UK has risen to £93billion a year – “even more than Jeremy Corbyn wanted to put on people”. A prickly Mr Sunak replied: “And as you and I have discussed many times, Nick, what’s happened in that period? We were hit by a once in a century pandemic and then an energy crisis.

“The Government rightly stepped in at both of those moments to provide an enormous amount of support to people, to families, with their energy bills, with furlough, the NHS. That was the right thing to do.”

Challenged over the threat of Nigel Farage, Mr Robinson told the PM: “You see, a lot of people looking at him and you, they think these Conservatives, he’s a kind of Sunday roast with all the trimmings and you’re a quinoa salad.”

Mr Sunak replied: Well, I think the policies are what matter. The substance is what matters, Nick.” The PM was asked: “After 14 years, five Prime Ministers, Boris Johnson lying about parties, Liz Truss almost crashing the economy and you bunking off D-Day, after all the broken promises, you really think you deserve another chance?”

Mr Sunak insisted: “We have a clear plan, I’m prepared to take bold action to cut people’s taxes, protect their pensions, and bring migration down, and in contrast, Labour are just going to put everyone’s taxes up, that’s the choice.”

In response to Mr Sunak’s housing remark, Labour deputy leader and Shadow Housing Secretary Angela Rayner said: “Rishi Sunak’s confession that having a home of your own has got harder under the Tories is a damning indictment of 14 years of housing failure. Home ownership is a pipedream for young people in Britain today.

“Never once in 14 years have the Tories met their 300,000 a year housing target, and their recent decision to appease the Tory MPs on their backbenches and abolish mandatory housing targets has seen housebuilding take a nosedive.”

She went on: “Labour will get Britain building with 1.5 million new homes and the biggest boost to social and affordable housing in a generation.”

Struggling Mr Sunak was earlier forced to deny suggestions he had considered resigning before the election as anger mounts over his D-Day snub. He was heavily criticised after skipping a world leaders’ event in Normandy to mark 80 years since the heroic World War Two mission last Thursday.

The PM told reporters in Horsham, Sussex: “I just hope people can find it in their hearts to forgive me.” And he went on: “There are lots of people who want to write me off, write this off, say this campaign or the election is a foregone conclusion. The reality is I’m not going to stop going, I’m not going to stop fighting for people’s votes, I’m not going to stop fighting for the future of our country.”

It comes as Labour has warned Mr Sunak’s sums don’t add up – as Tories were accused of cooking up “imaginary” savings to fund manifesto pledges. The under-fire PM is set to publish “the most expensive panic attack in history” in a desperate attempt to mislead voters, it is claimed. In a pre-emptive attack on the Tory election promises, Shadow Paymaster General Jonathan Ashworth branded the Tory spending plans a “fraud on the electorate” and filled with “unfunded commitment after unfunded commitment”.

He rubbished Tory claims that billions of pounds can be saved through a draconian welfare shake-up. He also said the PM’s controversial National Service plan will cost twice what Mr Sunak says it will. The Conservatives are set to publish their manifesto on Tuesday.

Struggling Mr Sunak was earlier forced to deny suggestions he had considered resigning before the election as anger mounts over his D-Day snub. He was heavily criticised after skipping a world leaders’ event in Normandy to mark 80 years since the heroic World War Two mission last Thursday.

The PM told reporters in Horsham, Sussex: “I just hope people can find it in their hearts to forgive me.” And he went on: “There are lots of people who want to write me off, write this off, say this campaign or the election is a foregone conclusion. The reality is I’m not going to stop going, I’m not going to stop fighting for people’s votes, I’m not going to stop fighting for the future of our country.”

It came as Mr Ashworth warned the Conservatives will not deliver on a promise to rake in £12billion through welfare reform and £6billion by cracking down on tax avoidance. Mr Ashworth told an event in Westminster: “If they claim that they have £12billion of welfare savings to spend elsewhere, that is a flagrant lie. It must be understood and called out.”

Mr Ashworth went on: “The Tories sums do not add up. The money is simply not there.” Labour analysis suggests Government welfare shake-ups, announced with a lot of fanfare in April, will deliver zero savings.

Mr Ashworth said changes to Work Capability Assessments and reform of fit notes won’t save the Treasury any money. And the Labour frontbencher added that the Government has failed to put forward concrete plans to reform Personal Independence Payments (PIPs), meaning there is no plan for savings.

He said: “Tory tax and spending plans are a fraud on the electorate. When they make more desperate promises, funded by £12billion of imaginary welfare savings or £6billion of inflated and already spent the tax avoidance savings… that is alarming.”

Mr Ashworth also questioned Mr Sunak’s claim that the National Insurance plan would cost £2.5billion – claiming Labour analysis found it would cost double that. Under the PM’s plan 30,000 18 year olds would join the Armed Forces for a year and 745,000 others would carry out compulsory community service.

“Based on data from the Ministry of Defence itself and analysis from defence experts, it is clear that it would cost at least double that amount,” he said. Mr Ashworth said Labour number-crunchers had “struggled in vain” to work out how Mr Sunak reached the costings.

He said that the cost of sending 30,000 teenagers on a 14-week training course alone would cost £1.5billion. The expensive project would eat up any cash the Tories would plough into delivering its promises to deliver new towns and reform child benefits and age related tax allowance.

Mr Ashworth denied that the Labour manifesto would be cautious – pointing planning law reform that he said will spark a housebuilding drive. He added that free breakfast clubs in primary schools, 100,000 more childcare places and 40,000 more NHS appointments a week.

He said: “I don’t think any of that is cautious. I think is caution, I think that is a transformation of Britain from where we are today after 14 years of the Conservatives, and every one of those policies I just outlined is going to be fully costed. We explain where that money is coming from, in contrast to the Tories.”

Pressed on Labour tax plans, he said: “Under a Labour government, there will be no increase in income tax, no increase in national insurance, no increase in VAT. Nothing in our plans requires additional tax to be raised.”

But he did not rule out an increase in capital gains tax.

In response a Tory spokesman said: “In a panicked press conference which has completely backfired, a clearly irate and rattled Jon Ashworth just announced Labour are not ruling out raising a plethora of taxes on working people and jobs. That’s on top of the other taxes on people’s homes and people’s pensions Labour have failed to rule out.”.