Rishi Sunak wobbles when requested what he’d do if he misplaced election

Rishi Sunak wobbled as he was asked how he’ll cope with an impending General Election mauling.

During a tense interview with ITV’s Paul Brand, the under-pressure PM was told he could be facing his “biggest ever failure”. Mr Brand went on to ask: “There’s a big chance you’ll lose. How will you cope with that?”

Mr Sunak claimed he hasn’t given any thought to losing, stating: “I’m focused on winning the election.” But when pressed, he conceded that he’ll rely on his family to help him after a defeat. He responded: “Well, I have a very loving family, they’re very supportive of me throughout my life. You don’t know the ins and outs of my entire life. Whenever I’ve had difficult times, my family were always there for me.”

But he said he is “working as hard as I can” to win despite the Tories’ dire position. Latest polling from Redfield & Wilton, based on a sample of 1,195 people, suggests the party will pick up 28% of the vote, while Labour will get 43%.

In the wide-ranging grilling – which the PM rushed back from D-Day commemorations for – Mr Sunak also doubled down after being accused of lying about Labour tax plans.

The Prime Minister faced a backlash after claiming civil servants had costed Keir Starmer’s spending plans and ruled people would be saddled with £2,000 more on their bills. This turned out to be untrue, with a bombshell letter from the Treasury’s chief civil servant pointing out that Tory advisors had crunched the numbers.

Asked if he was prepared to lie, Mr Sunak said: “No.” He went on: “This is desperate stuff. Keir Starmer and the Labour Party are very rattled that we’ve exposed their tax plans.”

And the PM, who is likely to face a further backlash, claimed: “I think people know that we’re across the detail when it comes to numbers.”

During the head-to-head clash with Keir Starmer, watched by over 4.8million viewers, the PM claimed “independent” civil servants had crunched the numbers on Labour plans. He asserted that working households would be saddled with an extra £2,000 in taxes if Mr Starmer becomes PM.

This was dismissed as an “outright lie” by Labour, which accuses the Tories of cooking the numbers. During last night’s debate, Mr Sunak said: “Independent Treasury officials have costed Labour’s policies and they amount to a £2,000 tax rise for every working family.”

But the most senior civil servant in the Treasury revealed this was not the case. James Bowler said he had warned ministers not to present the findings as being produced by the civil service.

He made the remarks in an ITV Tonight interview, which he filmed last week after rushing back from D-Day commemorations in Normandy. He was later forced to apologise after David Cameron stepped in at a world leaders’ event in the afternoon.

Asked how he could relate to ordinary voters given his enormous personal wealth he said: “During Covid was I going to lose my job? No politician was going to lose their job… That didn’t stop me understanding immediately how damaging that pandemic and shutting down the country was going to be.”

In the same interview Mr Sunak grumbled that he did not have Sky TV as a child. The super-rich PM laughed awkwardly as he was questioned by host Paul Brand on whether he understands the struggles facing ordinary families.

Mr Brand asked the PM “have you ever gone without something?” “Yes, I mean, my family emigrated here with very little. And that’s how I was raised. I was raised with the values of hard work,” the PM replied.

Pushed on what he’d gone without as a child, Mr Sunak said: “Oh, we went without lots of things because my parents wanted to put everything into our education and that was a priority.” But when asked what sort of things had to be sacrificed, he could only say: “Lots of things.” He then laughed.

Mr Sunak has been brutally mocked after the remarks, with a tongue-in-cheek fundraiser set up. More than £1,000 has been pledged for ‘Rishi Sunak’s Sky TV Fund’ – with the cash actually going to support food bank charity the Trussell Trust. The JustGiving page, set up after the PM struggled to name anything he’d gone without as a child, says viewers were “heartbroken” by his plight.

James Barisic, who set up the fundraiser – which includes a mocked-up image of the PM holding an old-fashioned TV set – said: “Millions of people across the UK were heartbroken to read the recent interview with Rishi Sunak when he revealed that, during his childhood, he had no access to Sky TV.

“Unlike thousands of children, Rishi’s deprived childhood included no satellite TV – a fate surely shared with his poverty-stricken friends who were also students at the private Winchester School. Despite this unimaginably tough start, Rishi worked hard and rose to a position where, as an investment banker, he earned millions after he bet on a bank that was subsequently bailed out by taxpayers.”

Mr Sunak, 44, attended one of the country’s most expensive boarding schools, Winchester College. He and his wife Akshata Murty are the richest inhabitants of Downing Street in history with a combined £651million fortune.

Earlier TV funnyman Jason Manford skewered the PM after a video of the interview was shared. He posted: posted on X/Twitter: “Why do they pretend that their upbringing was worse than it was! We see right through you! A more compassionate answer would’ve been ‘look, my parents worked hard & I was fortunate to have a warm house & food on the table & I want to make sure every child in the UK has that too’.”