Rishi Sunak has made an embarrassing gaffe chatting about football in a brewery in Wales.
The Prime Minister met brewery staff in Barry, South Wales, where he discussed his party’s support for the sector during a brief campaign stop. He attempted to make small talk with workers and asked them if they were looking forward to “all the football later this summer as a potential source of revenue.
But one worker responded quickly pointing out that Wales had not qualified for the Euro 2024 tournament. The PM, himself a teetotaller, was shown brewing processes on the second stop of his tour of the UK’s four nations as he sought to seize the initiative at the start of the General Election campaign.
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PA)
Mr Sunak told staff they were “part of a proper industry that we’re keen to support”, mentioning a “Brexit pubs guarantee” and support with business rates. He toured the brewery with Wales Secretary David TC Davies and Vale of Glamorgan MP Alun Cairns.
It is not the first football gaffe Mr Sunak, who claims he is a “massive football fan”, has made. In summer 2022 he spoke about how his beloved Southampton needed to beat Manchester United at the weekend, even though they were in fact preparing to play Leicester City. He has spoken about his family having season tickets to watch the Saints when he was growing up and said watching the team play is his “number one love”.
The PM travelled to Wales after answering questions from workers at William West Distribution in Ilkeston, Derbyshire. Speaking to around 50 staff at the warehouse, he repeated his message that the Conservatives would offer economic stability and “a clear plan”, while Labour would take the UK “back to square one”.
During the session, he was confronted over NHS waiting lists as he started his charm offensive the day after his surprise General Election announcement. The PM admitted he hasn’t made the progress he hoped to after Mick Shergold said he’d been waiting 12 weeks for a scan, while his wife had endured a three-year delay. Mr Shergold, 68, said he was concerned that “nothing’s being done”.
The PM will head up to Scotland later on Thursday after his short trip to Wales. Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney has already hit out at Mr Sunak’s decision to hold the General Election during the Scottish school holidays shows a “lack of respect” for Scotland.
He told BBC Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme: “I don’t really think the arrangements in Scotland for the school holidays have really been anywhere near the calculations made by the Prime Minister.”
Mr Sunak took a huge political gamble by calling a July 4 election on Wednesday night in a rain-soaked press statement outside Number 10, despite having marked early in the month for when the first flight would take off.