Rishi Sunak He sat obediently, waiting his turn, as if he were a little boy perched nervously in front of the headmaster’s desk, while in the foreground, Britain’s most tattooed woman discussed the ink she had on her genitals.
This being ITV This morning—the long-running, hugely controversial TV magazine show in which a recipe segment can be followed by an in-depth interview with a victim of harassment—the British Prime Minister, on the eve of the UNITED KINGDOM The general election that will determine his fate and that of the ruling Conservative Party was desperate to pick up a few final votes.
Polls on Thursday predicted a landslide victory for the opposition Labour Party, prompting Sunak and his ministers to invoke a likely catastrophe for the country as a whole, although many voters see the Tories, plagued by corruption and graft, as responsible for a long slide in that direction.
Boris Johnson delivers dramatic speech to boost Conservative support in UK
Before Sunak could make his last-minute hard sell, the presenters wanted to speak to “the UK’s most tattooed mum”, Becky Holt, and while the cameras caught her chatting to presenters Ben Shephard and Cat Deeley, along with Sunak, they also caught the country’s leader looking on forlornly in the background.
The pair met and greeted after the show, also captured on camera – which must have been a surreal turn of events for both of them; but perhaps not as surreal as it was for Sunak, relegated to the back of the studio, listening to every detail of Holt’s life in ink.
“I got my first tattoo when I was 15,” Holt told the hosts. “It wasn’t a smart move, I got my boyfriend’s name tattooed right on my crotch. Obviously, that tattoo doesn’t exist anymore, but that’s when the obsession really started.”
She spent about £30,000 ($38,000) to tattoo about 95 percent of her body. As the interview showed, Holt, refreshingly frank, could teach politicians a thing or two about clear communication. She said she “lives in the moment” and doesn’t think about the future with tattoos. At least she would have an “interesting story” to tell the staff at the care home she might end up in, she added.
Of the tattoo on his genitals, Holt said: “It took three sessions, the first one was an hour and a half and was just drawing the lines, and then a few weeks later I colored them in… It was horrible, it was like a tear, a burn, not nice at all… It was just swollen, you have to be careful, it was a bit itchy. But it actually healed really quickly. I guess the skin there is a bit different, so it healed a lot quicker.”
Perhaps thinking of what he had heard as a metaphor for how he might recover after taking a beating at the polls, Sunak, when asked casually in the next segment how he was feeling, managed to say, slightly stunned, “I’m doing great. It was incredible… it was really something.”
Shephard said it was “the nature of This morning:we go from the most tattooed mum in the UK to Prime Minister.
Becky Holt, left, and Rishi Sunak on This Morning.
Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock
Sunak, trying to look relaxed and Mr Normal – a pointless drag act given that everyone knows his wealth and political ambitions – laughed off his attempt at a man-of-the-people laugh and said: “Yes, without tattoos – which probably comes as no surprise to most people.”
He added, pointing to his arm, that if he were to get a tattoo, he would get the “Saints crest”, which is the Southampton FC badge. “It’s a great logo. I think it’s one of the best crests in football.”
Curious friends can be made in television studios, and that’s what happened to Holt. later posted on Instagram a photo of her and Sunak with the caption: “I can’t believe I met the Prime Minister today.” She said ALL RIGHT “He was really nice and very, very polite. He asked me how much my tattoos were worth. He asked me which one was the most painful. It was short and sweet and we shook hands.”
The other revelation from his interview: “I’m a big sandwich person,” Sunak confessed, with Sky News later learning that his favourite was “a club sandwich, with crisps and a Coke”.
On election night, Sunak said: This morninghe would eat his favourite pie, described as a “very good pork pie with a special chutney and cheese too”.
For many Britons, tomorrow’s election will, if nothing else, be a welcome end to such nonsense – and the political madness that goes with it.
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