‘We’ve got to hold our nerve’: Rishi Sunak’s BBC interview

As mortgage rates surge and a new Opinium poll finds Labour’s lead has jumped to 18 points, Rishi Sunak appeared on Laura Kuenssberg’s BBC show to insist that his plan is the right one. The interview was pre-recorded in the Downing Street garden yesterday, with Sunak commenting on the – now failed – attempted coup by Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and previewing his government’s long-term NHS workforce plan. However, the main portion of the at times, scrappy interview was spent on inflation and the consequences for mortgage holders.

Kuenssberg repeatedly asked Sunak whether he would admit that many voters would feel economic pain as a result of the government’s plans to bring down inflation. In reply, Sunak repeatedly pointed out that he had been one of the first politicians to warn of the dangers of inflation, when others were yet to take the prospect of rising interest rates seriously: ‘Of course I know it’s a challenging time… two years ago I started talking about inflation.’