Reform UK MP Danny Kruger was left stuttering on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
BBC Radio 2 host confronts Reform member over alleged comments about Carol Vorderman
Stuttering Reform UK MP Danny Kruger was lost for words as he was confronted about the vile comments made by the party’s Makerfield by-election candidate Robert Kenyon live on BBC Radio 4. Kruger was being grilled by Today host Emma Barnett on the show this morning (May 25) when he was asked his opinions on disgusting social media posts regarding Carol Vorderman’s intimate parts.
On the show, Barnett said: “You talk about better politicians – can we talk about some of the social media posts that have emerged from your Makerfield by-election candidate, Robert Kenyon? Or, as he’s described, your ‘plucky plumber’? In a now deleted Twitter account, on Christmas Eve in 2021 he supported a message sent by another man to the TV presenter Carol Vorderman.”
She was forced to issue an apology in advance, telling her audience: “I apologise to our listeners, but I think they need to hear this.
Vile comments were aimed at Carol Vorderman (Image: Getty)
“There was a message sent to Carol Vorderman that says, ‘Happy Birthday Carol. My God, I would love to smell and lick your a******e.’ And your candidate for Makerfield replied saying, ‘He’s only saying what we’re all thinking’, with a thumbs-up and a laughing emoji.
“Is that the type of better politician you think the British people deserve?”
A stuttering Kruger replied: “What you’re seeing there… I didn’t know about that… is obviously a private comment made-“ but was cut off by Barnett, who said: “It’s public.”
He tried: “Well, let me explain. The great challenge of social media for private people is they use it as if they are chatting to their friends in the pub. Clearly an inappropriate thing to say publicly-“
Danny Kruger stammered through the humiliating segment (Image: Getty)
Barnett asked: “Have you ever written that privately?”
Kruger stammered: “Well, no, but listen – I’m not going to judge people for what are essentially, at the time, intended as private conversations. Clearly that’s not the sort of thing you would want an elected politician to make, quite rightly. He’s deleted that post and regrets it-“
Barnett pointed out he deleted the entire X account as Kruger tried to say: “If I may, if I may-“ but she cut him off once again to fume: “No, if I may read to you what Carol Vorderman has said.
“Let’s give a voice to the woman in all this. Carol Vorderman’s response to a man that you have endorsed as a party, this is your party, standing in a very important by-election. She said, ‘He’s a cowardly misogynist’ and this plucky plumber, she says, ‘I wouldn’t let him in my house if he was a local plumber in my area, not with what he’s been posting online. There’s always a pattern.’”
Robert Kenyon is Reform’s pick for the Makerfield by-election (Image: BBC)
Kruger said: “L-like I say, this was clearly something said in a different context, not an appropriate thing to say publicly-“
Barnett was having none of it as she retorted: “He also said female rugby players, talked about them being able to handle their knockers. I could continue, but it’s 7:30 in the morning.
“You can say this was private, but it was public, it was considered by him how he wanted to conduct himself not 20 years ago, 30 years ago – in 2021. On Christmas Eve, he’s spending his time talking about what he wants to do to the intimate parts of a woman who used to present Countdown.”
Kenyon has also shared Covid-19 conspiracy theories and transphobic slurs on the platform.