Rishi Sunak has come under fire for what critics called an “excruciating” exchange with a homeless man.
In footage from his visit to a homeless shelter in London on Friday, the Prime Minister can be heard asking a man he is serving food to: “Do you work in business?”
The man, called Dean, replies: “No, I’m homeless. I’m actually a homeless person.”
READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon thanks emergency service workers in Christmas message
Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner tweeted the ITV clip and wrote: “Excruciating.”
The awkward exchange began when the multimillionaire Prime Minister was serving breakfast to the homeless man, who asked him: “Are you sorting the economy out?”
Dean then said he was interested in business, prompting Mr Sunak to ask him what kind of business.
“Do you work in business?"
— Angela Rayner 🌹 (@AngelaRayner) December 24, 2022
"No, I'm homeless. I'm a homeless person."
Excruciating.pic.twitter.com/mtd9pYBOt0
When Dean replied finance, the Prime Minister said: “I used to work in finance, actually.”
Mr Sunak then asked: “Is that something you’d like to get into?”
“Yeah I wouldn’t mind. But, I don’t know, I’d like to get through Christmas first,” the homeless man said.
Mr Sunak asked: “What’s your plan, what are you doing this weekend?”
Dean replied that he was hoping the homeless charity St Mungo’s could help him get into temporary accommodation “so I’m not on the street”.
Another Labour MP, Bill Esterson, said the exchange demonstrated Mr Sunak was “out of touch”.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel