These are the cringiest moments from the Tory leadership contest…so far

The Tory leadership contest is reaching its final stages with only two candidates left – Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. The competition hasn’t been plain sailing and these two aren’t exactly the smoothest political figures. Here’s a quick a look back at some of the cringiest moments from the Tory leadership contest…so far.

Liz Truss launches her leadership bid… and immediately gets lost

Liz Truss officially launches her leadership campaign #LizForLeader, but has a little difficulty finding her way off the stage.

In a cringeworthy moment caught on camera, Liz wanders around looked completely bewildered, until an aide finally gets up to point her in the right direction.

Painful to watch.

Truss and Sunak looking like they’re being held captive on the BBC debate

In this incredibly awkward segment from the BBC debate on Monday night, Truss and Sunak both forget how to look like a human being.

The clip led to ridicule on Twitter the next day.

Sunak and his nonexistent working class friends

Back when he was still at university, Sunak and his parents took part in a BBC documentary called Middle Classes: Their Rise and Sprawl.

A clip from this has recently resurfaced in which Sunak describes his social circle: “I have friends who are aristocrats, I have friends who are upper class, I have friends who are working class… well, not working class.”

 

Sunak attended Winchester College, a private boys boarding school that costs about £34,000 a year, before going onto to Oxford. So I guess it checks out that he doesn’t have any working class friends.

Liz Truss met some kids and they had NO filter

As part of her leadership campaign Truss visited Little Miracles , a Peterborough-based charity that helps children with special needs and disabilities. Unfortunately for Truss, the kids didn’t hesitate to pipe up.

“This is SO awkward,” shouts one. Another asks Truss, “Where’s Boris?”, and when she explains he is still in Downing Street the kids are not happy. “Have they not kicked him out yet?” said one child.

Another chimed in with the request: “Do me a favour, when you become Prime Minister, evict him.” At this point, Truss looked very uncomfortable, admitting: “Well, he will have to move out at that point. That is true.”

Throwback to Sunak describing himself as a ‘total coke addict’

While on a school visit back in 2019, Sunak was asked, “Do you prefer coke or Pepsi?” by some secondary schoolers. He responded: “One of these things not that many people know about me… I’m a total coke addict.”

He quickly clarifies that he is referring to Coca Cola, rather than anything else, but his young interviewers are already in hysterics.

Probably not the best choice of words there, Rishi.

Truss thought drones were scared of dogs

While in the House of Commons, Truss spoke about a visit to Pentonville Prison, praising their “patrol dogs who are barking, which helps deter drones.”

You can see the MP sitting behind her trying to keep a straight face, as this is in fact, not really how drones work.

Sunak launched his leadership campaign and immediately got SLATED on Twitter

The #ReadyForRishi campaign was launched suspiciously quickly, and nobody was fooled. When Sunak first tweeted his campaign video, Guardian journalist Owen Jones clapped back. “Just came up with this video in the last couple of days did you?” wrote Jones in a tweet that originally had more likes than the campaign video itself.

As it turns out, the domain name “readyforrishi.com” was first registered back in December 2021, over six months ago. Looks like he had been thinking about it for more than a couple of days then, huh…

Nadine Dorries claims Truss earrings are ‘£4.50 from Claire’s Accessories’ 

While she isn’t a leadership contender, this list wouldn’t be complete without a Nadine Dorries moment. Earlier this week the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport tweeted the following: “Liz Truss will be travelling the country wearing her earrings which cost circa £4.50 from Claire’s Accessories.”

Dorries is a Truss supporter, so its not quite clear what she thought this tweet was achieving. Later that day the BBC debate took place, and of course the tweet came up.

Truss seemed slightly thrown as she doesn’t know how Nadine “knows where I got my earrings, to be perfectly frank about it”.

Truss described Sunak as “a very finely dressed person” and says she “isn’t going to be giving him fashion advice.”

Nadine gets blocked by another Conservative MP

Others had had enough of Dorries – fellow Tory MP Angela Richardson responded to the tweet with “FFS Nadine!” and promptly blocked her.

Voting opens to Tory party members on the 1st of August and closes on the 2nd September. So in just over a month, either Rishi “coke addict” Sunak or “Lost” Liz Truss will be our new Prime Minister. Can’t wait.

Featured image via BBC. 

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