Comedian Ben Elton branded Rishi Sunak a “mendacious narcissistic sociopath” as he ripped the prime minister to shreds on live TV.
The Blackadder writer could not hide his anger after watching the PM being interviewed on the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday.
Sunak had been accused of being in “a parallel universe” after he appeared to downplay the crisis in the NHS and the soaring cost of living.
Asked for his opinion on the interview, Elton described Sunak’s performance as an “extraordinary Orwellian, meaningless, evasive word salad”.
He said: “I sort of wanted to believe maybe he’s kind of a bit more decent, but it turns out he’s as much of a mendacious, narcissistic, sociopath as his previous boss.
“He seemed to be making a principal of the fact that he resigned from a government that he’d served loyally and tried to keep propped up for numerous years.
“He’s trying to boast about having worried about inflation while he was Chancellor of the Exchequer under [Boris] Johnson. He seemed to act like being born into Downing Street six months ago was a miracle birth - no, he was part of a 13-year cycle which has got us to this point.
“He talks about other countries having the same problems, he doesn’t admit what he well knows that they are all doing better under them.”
He added: “He’s the prime minister, he owes us honesty but we got nothing but mendacity, evasion and vanity, just dripping with vanity.”
The prime minister last week insisted that “it’s going to be OK” despite inflation remaining high and interest rates continuing to rise.
On the BBC this morning, Sunak also repeatedly refused to concede that government is failing on the NHS, despite waiting list being at a record high.
Kuenssberg told him: “Doesn’t it sound to many people, or it might it risk sounding, like you’re in some kind of parallel universe where the NHS is getting better and the economy is going to be OK? It’s not the experience of millions of people right now.”
But the PM said: “I get that this is challenging and that’s going to have an impact on me in the short term, but we’ve got to stick to the course and I want people to be re-assured that we’ve got to hold our nerve, stick to the plan and we will get through this.”