Rishi Sunak’s sarcastic response after Liz Truss chickens out of Andrew Neil interview
Rishi Sunak has agreed to be interviewed by Andrew Neil, but his rival Liz Truss has chickened out.
The former chancellor, who will be grilled live at 7.30pm on Channel 4 on Friday, responded to Truss declining the invitation with a cheeky tweet.
He wrote ‘Just me then?’ with a winking emoji in response to ITN Productions tweet.
Ms Truss has already been accused of running from scrutiny for her few and far between interviews since entering the leadership race.
She, along with Mr Sunak, dropped out of a Sky News debate, and now appears to be following in the footsteps of Boris Johnson, who refused to be interviewed by Neil during the 2019 general election.
The Prime Minister was accused of ‘running scared’ at the time, and dispatched Mr Sunak to take his place in a live TV debate.
The veteran political journalist did interview Mr Johnson and Jeremy Hunt earlier in 2019, when they went head-to-head in the last Tory leadership contest.
In that interview, Mr Johnson came under pressure for his comments about Sir Kim Darroch – seen as the final straw in his decision to resign as ambassador to the US.
Channel 4 hosted the first televised debate in this Tory leadership race, which saw more than two million people tuning in to see a series of bruising exchanges between the then-five contenders.
Mr Sunak has pledged to proceed with the sale of Channel 4 if he succeeds Mr Johnson as PM – saying privatisation would help the broadcaster compete with streaming giants.
Neil stepped down as the chairman of GB News last year, also quitting his prime-time show on the network.
The former Sunday Times editor was one of the BBC’s top political broadcasters for many years, presenting This Week, Daily Politics and BBC One’s Sunday Politics.
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