Keir Starmer’s 45 minutes of humiliation after brutal grilling in six nightmare interviews

The Prime Minister was just subjected to a 45-minute gruelling grilling from local radio stations, as listeners across the country heard him struggling to answer crucial questions.

An annual tradition, Prime Ministers often use the local radio stations to get a message out to specific regions and avoid the Westminster-focus of national broadcasters.

However Liz Truss’s appalling performance at the hands of local radio hosts in 2022 has since revealed that the hosts are no pushovers.

Sir Keir appeared on six local stations from 11.15 this morning, covering Merseyside, Lincolnshire, the West Midlands, Norfolk, Kent and Bristol.

While each joust lasted just seven to eight minutes, the Prime Minister found himself repeatedly butting heads with the interviewers and facing damning personal testimonies from local voters about how his policies will affect them.

Sir Keir was slapped down by the Merseyside host, after he was asked a question about this morning’s rise in the energy price cap, only to begin talking about the Government’s re-introduction of ASBOs.

Host Tony Snell interrupted him to call him out after the PM “drifted off the topic”.

He was also called out over this week’s revelation that the Government’s own modelling has revealed 50,000 pensioners will be pushed into relative poverty as a result of his cuts to Winter Fuel Allowance.

He was accused of “picking a fight with the pensioners”, and then forced to admit he’s never personally struggled to pay his utility bills – something many local listeners will have struggled to sympathise with.

Moving over to Lincolnshire the PM was met with the brutal opening question: “Do you have a problem with Lincolnshire? Have the people of Lincolnshire upset you in any way? Because you seem to have upset an awful lot of people in the county since you were elected back in July.”

Sir Keir sounded petulant when he hit back: “No, I’ve got absolutely nothing against Lincoln [sic], it’s an absolutely fantastic county – an under-appreciated county.”

Presenter Sean Dunderdale called him out for being over in Rio De Janeiro for the G20 while Lincolnshire farmers travelled down to Westminster to condemn the Government’s planned inheritance tax hike on their families and businesses.

At one point the Prime Minister responded to one worried farmer with the offer that any farmer can write into him with details of their farm, and his team will go through the figures with each farmer who writes in.

This seems like an offer that could seriously backfire if more than a small handful of farmers were to take it up.

His go on West Midlands was particularly brutal, as he was awkwardly pressed over Labour’s record running Birmingham Council into the ground.

He was asked whether the local Labour council has “failed” voters with its poor administration, and asked “should the government be doing more here?”

Sir Keir attempted to talk about antisocial behaviour, before being cut off by presenter Kath Stanczyszyn who pointed out “we’re not talking about those issues”.

One West Midlands local’s message was also read out live on air, who observed: “I can’t remember Sir Keir promising to terrify and freeze to death the elderly in his manifesto”, with the PM stumbling over his answer as he tried to justify the policy.

The media round continued with similar questions, as listeners and hosts in Norfolk, Kent and Bristol all expressed outrage about the tractor tax and Winter Fuel cuts.

The Prime Minister will be thankful he doesn’t have to brave another set of local media interviews for another year – whether 2025’s round is any kinder remains to be seen.