Top Tory skewered over Boris Johnson stunt in ‘automobile crash’ Sky News interview

Mel Stride has been grilled over the Tories’ decision to wheel out Boris Johnson as he faced a “car crash” TV interview hours before the General Election.

The disgraced former Prime Minister made a surprise appearance at a General Election campaign rally in Central London on Tuesday evening. “When Rishi asked me to come and help of course I couldn’t say no,” he told Tory activists, as he repeated the party’s recent attacks on Keir Starmer’s family life.

But the Work and Pensions secretary was quizzed this morning by Sky News’ Matt Barbet on the timing of his re-emergence, as the presenter said: “We are the final throes of this – so what a time to wheel out Boris Johnson?”

He replied: “I think Boris has a lot to say about what will happen if there’s a Keir Starmer government. And he’s saying the same as Rishi Sunak, as David Cameron who was at the event, as Theresa May has been saying as one of our former ministers”, before repeating the Tory claim that “taxes are going to be going up under the Labour party“.

The interview took a tense turn later on when the minister was pressed on the Tories’ negative campaign tactics and 14 years of wage stagnation. “It’s a bit tragic isn’t that you can’t refer to a 14 year record and be positive about the future when coming into a General Election”, Matt Barbet said. He then mentioned new legislation in the Welsh Senedd which would ban politicians lying, before asking him: “Have you ever told a lie?”. An uncomfortable Mel Stride replied: “I’m not getting drawn into questions like that”.

Social media users described it as a “car crash” interview. One person wrote: “It’s about time the questions were a bit spikier. For 14 years this lot have got away with zero scrutiny”. Another pointed out how many times Mr Stride had been sent out to face the cameras while other Tories stay conspicuously absent, writing: “Stride again? They really don’t have anyone else prepared to do it, have they?”

It comes after Mel Stride appeared to concede that the Conservatives had lost the election a whole day before voters go to the polls. In multiple interviews with broadcasters this morning, he predicted Keir Starmer’s party will likely win “the largest majority any party has ever achieved”.

Asked whether he had accepted that the Tories had lost the election, Mr Stride told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I have accepted that where the polls are at the moment – and it seems highly unlikely that they are very, very wrong, because they’ve been consistently in the same place for some time – that we are therefore tomorrow highly likely to be in a situation where we have the largest majority that any party has ever achieved.”