WATCH: Mel Stride tells GB News he reached out to Rachel Reeves are 'upsetting' PMQs appearance

GB News

Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride has accused the Prime Minister of "completely bungling it" by failing to support Chancellor Rachel Reeves during a challenging Commons appearance yesterday.Speaking on GB News, Stride suggested the Prime Minister's inadequate response at the dispatch box contributed to a spike in gilt yields.FULL STORY HERE.

Transcript

00:00The Shadow Chancellor, Mel Stride, joins us now. Very good to see you this morning.

00:05I know it's hard, but we need to start with your counterpart and what we saw yesterday.

00:13What's your assessment?

00:17Well, I think what we saw yesterday was quite upsetting, actually, to witness, to be frank.

00:24I had no idea that Rachel was going to come in in that particular situation, clearly very stressed.

00:33I messaged her afterwards just to say I hope that she was all right and that I felt for her at that particular moment in time.

00:42Yeah, it was a very difficult moment in the Commons, I think, in that personal way.

00:47Do you know what? It's quite... Because a lot of people think politics is so combative,

00:51it's quite nice to know that actually you can reach across the aisle in these sort of situations.

01:01Yeah, I think that's really important for people to focus on, actually,

01:04is there's so much brutality in politics and you see it from other politicians,

01:08you see it from the press, the media, social media and so on,

01:11but never to forget that people are ultimately human beings

01:15and in the case of politicians, the vast majority of them,

01:18they may disagree about things and how to do the right thing for the country and so on.

01:23At the end of the day, they're in there doing their best around what they actually believe.

01:28And, yes, when somebody's in a difficult personal situation like that,

01:31my heart went out to her.

01:33And, I mean, we're being told it's for personal reasons.

01:37One of the many things that may have upset her yesterday

01:40was the Prime Minister failing to back her in the Commons

01:44when he was asked to do so by Kemi Badenok.

01:47Do you think that the Chancellor will still be in her post

01:49to deliver the autumn budget?

01:54Well, we'll have to wait and see where all of that goes.

01:56We know that, subsequently, the Prime Minister has come out

02:00and said that the Chancellor will stay in post until the next general election.

02:03Well, if that was always the case,

02:05it seems to me that he completely bungled it at the dispatch box yesterday

02:09by not stating that clearly then,

02:13because that is one of the reasons why we've seen this spike in gilt yields

02:17in the gilt market, which, of course, means higher interest rates

02:20for our country to borrow money

02:22and, ultimately, has got to be paid for,

02:24almost certainly by way of higher taxes,

02:26at the budget in the autumn.

02:28So it was a massive misstep by the Prime Minister,

02:31one of many, I have to say, if you look at all these U-turns

02:34that he's bungled around as well, that we saw yesterday.

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