Boris Johnson ended his 1,791-day hiatus from Good Morning Britain with a car-crash interview with Susanna Reid over the cost-of-living crisis, the Partygate scandal and honesty in politics.
The Prime Minister – who turned up 15 minutes late to the hotly-anticipated interview – did not seem prepared for the ITV presenter’s ruthless questioning and constant interjections.
In one calamitous moment, Johnson was asked about Elsie, a 77-year-old pensioner who has been forced to ride around on buses all day to keep warm so she does not have to pay for heating back home.
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“I don’t want Elsie to cut back on anything,” Johnson said before congratulating himself for expanding the 24-hour freedom pass – which allows over-60s unlimited travel on public transport. An unimpressed Reid replied: “So she should be grateful?”
Johnson trundled along like a poorly-serviced bus through Reid’s probing. He was left squirming when she asked him “are you honest?” He admitted that he got it “wrong on Partygate” but stressed that he “inadvertently” misled Parliament.
He even appeared to distance himself from remarks by Rishi Sunak in which the Chancellor suggested the government could “look again” at a windfall tax on energy firms.
“If you put a windfall tax on the energy companies, what that means is that you discourage them from making the investments that we want to see that will, in the end, keep energy prices lower for everybody,” he said.
As the interview drew to a close, Reid told Johnson that they were handing back over to Lorraine Kelly in the studio. “Who’s Lorraine?” Johnson asked. He knew exactly who she was – the faux-naïf bit fell completely flat. “Well, I didn’t want to talk to Lorraine,” the PM then said, relieved that he longer had to face another ITV presenter.
In the run-up to the 2019 election, Johnson hid in a fridge to avoid giving a TV interview to GMB. After this morning’s performance, he might have wished he’d stayed there.
