Rishi Sunak has been savagely compared to a quinoa salad by the BBC’s Nick Robinson – after failing to draw a line under his D-Day commemoration scandal.
In the first of a series of one-to-one interviews with the leaders of the major political parties, the Panorama presenter grilled the Prime Minister on his decision to leave Normandy early on the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings – for which he was forced to issue a grovelling apology.
Raising the furore again, Nick asked what Mr Sunak made of Nigel Farage’s comments insinuating the PM isn’t patriotic and doesn’t understand British culture.
But Sunak refused to be drawn on the controversial Reform UK leader, trying instead to talk about his support for veterans.
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“The problem with that is that Nigel Farage has destroyed David Cameron’s premiership. He helped bring down Theresa May and he’s now coming for you and isn’t your problem that many Conservatives think he’s more of a Conservative than you are?” asked Nick.
When once again Sunak refused to be drawn, Nick went in with a skewering line.
“So you won’t talk about Nigel Farage at all. 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,” he said brutally.
Viewers reacted with glee at the line, with one quipping: “Rishi Sunak is nothing like a quinoa salad. A salad would not go off after 3 hours like he did on D-Day.”
Another tweeted: “Desperate stuff Does ANYBODY believe him? And still bashing the young, and pampering the old. The young aren’t buying National Service, and the old are deserting to Labour or Reform. Sunak’s not a quinoa sald: he’s toast.”
And a third wearily wrote: “Nick Robinson just asked Rishi Sunak if he is a “quinoa salad” Only three more weeks to polling day.”
Later on in the half-hour interview, Nick also compared Sunak to a loudmouth pub blagger who is sketchy about repaying money he borrows.
Grilling him on his broken promise to ‘stop the boats’ – after record numbers of migrants arrived on British shores – and his failure to get his Rwandan scheme off the ground, Nick said: “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,” he added.
During the same interview, Sunak was floored by Nick’s four-word response to his attempts to talk up the Tories’ record on the NHS – which has been left with longer waiting lists, too few GP appointments and staff leaving in droves.
The PM was forced to admit that he’d failed to meet his promise to cut NHS waiting lists but claimed his plan was working. Mr Sunak again tried to blame NHS strikes for backlog for treatment.
But Mr Robinson said: “I think the worry people have when they look at that record, is they think it’s all right for Conservative leaders. What they can do is go private, pay and skip the queue.”
Mr Sunak replied: “I come from an NHS family, so my dad was a GP. My mum was a pharmacist. I was surrounded…” But Mr Robinson interjected: “You use private healthcare.”