Naga Munchetty left fuming on BBC Breakfast after car crash Labour grilling
Naga Munchetty found herself in a very tense exchange with housing secretary Steve Reed.
Naga Munchetty was involved in a tense exchange (Image: BBC)
Labour’s housing secretary Steve Reed became embroiled in a furious clash on BBC Breakfast this morning (May 15) which left presenter Naga Munchetty fuming. In the car crash interview, both parties spoke over one another and interrupted, with Munchetty demanding answers as to why prime minister Keir Starmer hasn’t spoken since Monday.
She fumed on the show: “When are we going to hear from the prime minister?”, only for Reed to respond: “Well I don’t know about access to his diary, but-“ The MP was cut off as Munchetty argued: “Don’t you think we should?”, but he would only reply: “I’m sure we will be hearing from the prime minister. I think this weekend everybody just needs to take a breath. We’ve had a dreadful week. We’ve looked appalling to the country in the way that we’ve behaved-“
Munchetty cut Reed off again to say: “And isn’t that exactly the reason why we should be hearing from the prime minister, whose party is in-“
Reed interrupted: “We hear from the prime minister all the time-“
Having had enough, Munchetty fumed: “No, no, no. Hold on a minute. He gave a speech on Monday. We’ve had resignations.
“We’ve had Angela Rayner, the former deputy prime minister, saying her tax affairs are sorted. We haven’t had any intention from her to stand for leader, but there are rumours there.
“You’ve got the Mayor of [Greater] Manchester saying he wants to become an MP so that he can pave the way for his leadership bid, and we’ve got the former health secretary resigning! Why on earth shouldn’t we hear from the prime minister this week?”
Steve Reed left Naga fuming (Image: BBC)
Reed again repeated: “I’m sure you will hear from the prime minister. He gave a speech on Monday, I was sitting just-“
But Munchetty cut him off: “Which didn’t go down well! Which is why we’ve got all this chaos as a response! He didn’t satisfy key members of his party!”
Reed replied: “It’s been a tough week, but nobody has gathered enough nominations to mount a leadership challenge. There is no leadership challenge!
“I’m a member of the cabinet and I’ve come on here to talk to you about the problems we had last week, but also the need to focus on delivering change, and what I’ve done is yesterday my department introduced the social housing bill into Parliament so we can get more council homes built and tackle the housing crisis that is facing this country.
He said ‘have you asked Starmer’ onto the show (Image: BBC)
“The British public want us to focus on the problems the country faces, not talk to each other about cabinet Top Trumps.”
Munchetty told him: “Steve Reed, as housing secretary, I’m very grateful that you’ve come on this programme to talk to us. We always appreciate having a cabinet member on this programme.
“However, on a week like this, do you not think that the electorate, the public, would like to hear from the prime minister?”
The BBC star was left taken aback by his casual answer, with Reed snapping: “Well, have you asked him?”
