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Rishi takes swipe at ‘Sir Sleepy’ Starmer’s plan to knock off at 6pm on Friday – as PM says ‘I work day AND night’
He defended the Tory election campaign with just 48 hours before Britain heads to the polls
RISHI Sunak took a swipe at Sir Keir Starmer today as he insisted “there is always work you can do as prime minister”.
The Tory leader hit out at the idea of clocking off at 6pm on Friday in Downing Street, claiming he puts in the hours “day and night” to keep the country on its feet.
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Mr Sunak also refused to deny his Labour opponent is the “Joe Biden of Britain” for wanting to spend the last evening of the working week with his kids.
The PM told The Sun: “Everyone is going to do this job differently - that is just the way it is.
“But I can tell you from my experience that it is demanding and rightly so because there is great responsibility that rests on your shoulders.
"There is always work you can do. There are always decisions that need to be made and that is what comes with the privilege of doing this job."
He added: “I work day and night to do the best job I can. I will do everything I can.
“I work day and night to try and make people's lives better.”
Dad-of-two Starmer has insisted he would continue to have “protected time for the kids” at the end of the week.
The Labour leader said that he will “not do a work-related thing after 6pm pretty well come what may” which will continue on reaching Downing Street.
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Speaking to Virgin Radio yesterday, he said: “I don’t believe in the theory that you’re a better decision maker if you don’t allow yourself the space to be a dad and have fun for your kids,
“Actually, it helps me. It takes me away from the pressure, it relaxes me and I think actually, not only is that what I want to do as a dad, it is better.”
This morning he responded to the Tory jibes and said it was "laughably ridiculous" to attack him over his work ethic.
He told Times Radio: "All I said was that on a Friday night, I tend to try and protect that time for my family.
"Of course, I've had to work Fridays in the past, I'll work Fridays in the future. But it's laughably ridiculous that this has become talked about by the Tories."
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Britain could wake up to a new Prime Minister on July 5 if Sir Keir Starmer proves the polls right and cruises into Downing Street.
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With 48 hours until polls open, the PM was leaving nothing to chance in his mission to secure more votes.
At 3am on Tuesday the Tory battle bus departed from his Leicestershire Hilton hotel, heading 90 minutes south to an Ocado warehouse in Luton.
In the dead of night, the PM spent 20 minutes in a gigantic fridge watching robots whizz across aisles packing shopping bags for customers.
The few humans working in the warehouse at 4.30am enjoyed watching their celebrity guest quality check that smoked salmon and avocado had been placed in the correct paper bag by the buzzing machines.
Back on the road at 5am it was time to make a pit-stop for breakfast.
At a services near the Cotswolds Mr Sunak picked up bags of Maccies for his aides and hungry reporters travelling with him.
Hashbrowns in hand he revealed he’s given up fasting for the election campaign.
The smiling PM said: “I can’t manage it during an election, I just can’t manage it with these hours.”
By 8am Mr Sunak was touring the aisles of a Cotswolds Morrisons.
He met with the store fishmongers and stacked three loaves of bread on the bakery shelves.
A few aisles away a shopper told reporters: “I’ve voted Conservative all my life but not anymore.
“I’m voting Reform this time.”
Late morning at a distribution warehouse in Oxfordshire Mr Sunak packed Nivea Christmas gift boxes before meeting with staff for Q&A.
Standing before towering aisles of painkillers and detergent, he was pressed on the soaring cost of childcare and crippling NHS waiting times.
The PM hammered home the argument that being a father of two makes him all to aware of the hardships parents are facing in Britain’s cost of living crisis.
Addressing a mother who turned to private health care after waiting three years for her son to secure an NHS appointment, Mr Sunak admitted: “We haven’t made as much progress on the health service as I would’ve liked.
“Children need to get the support they need – it’s vital. We’re going to make private care available on the NHS in more and more areas.”
Today the PM is also due to visit a distribution centre and farmyard barn, before heading to a night-time rally in London.
Speaking to the BBC this morning, Sunak issued a call to the British public about the dangers of an "unchecked" and "unaccountable" Labour supermajority.
Asked if he was already considering defeat, he said: “No, I’m very much still talking to people about our plan and our plan is to cut everyone’s taxes, to protect their pension, to secure their borders and to reduce migration.
“At the same time an election is a choice, they are a choice between different parties, my point is that if the polls are to be believed and Labour win a big majority then they will be unchecked and unaccountable to people and that will give them licence to put up everyone’s taxes and make us a soft touch of migration when it comes to the entire European continent
"I don't think that is right and I don’t want people to sleepwalk into that. I’m working very hard for every vote."
Asked about the latest opinion polls, which show Tory hopes flatlining at 20 per cent, Sunak said: "That’s not going to stop me from working as hard as I can during these last days of the campaign to talk to as many people as possible about the choice.
“I was up at 4 this morning talking to workers at a distribution facility, I’m here talking to you, I’ll be out til the last moment of this campaign because it’s a really important moment for our country."
He defended the Tory campaign, despite it having failed to narrow the gap with Labour.
On whether he had got the fight wrong, he said: “No, actually. Everywhere I’ve been going, people are waking up to the dangers of what a Labour government would mean for them, particularly when it comes to taxes.”
He said that under the Tories things are “undeniably” better than they were a few years ago.
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He said: “When it comes to the things that we want to do, people can see that we have turned a corner.
“It has been a difficult few years but undeniably things are in a better place now than they were, people are starting to feel the benefits of that.”
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