‘An absolute disaster and not funny’ - Tory MP criticised for laughing at ampaign question

Nigel Evans laughed as Victoria Debryshire quizzed hmi on his party's poor start to the election campaign. Photo: BBC - Credit: Archant

A television presenter ahs criticised a Conservative MP for laughing at a line of questioning over their election campaign.

The Conservative MP and secretary of the party’s private members’ committee Nigel Evans laughed at the party’s campaign launch after a hard-hitting line of questioning from the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire.

On Wednesday, Nigel Evans appeared on the morning TV show to discuss the start of the five-week election campaign.

Calling the launch of the Conservative’s campaign ‘an absolute disaster’, Derbyshire said: “A candidate saying people on benefits should be put down, Jacob Rees-Mogg said people with common sense would have got out of Grenfell Tower, Andrew Bridgen excusing that by saying Mr Rees-Mogg is ‘clever’, the government refusing to publish a report into whether the Russians have interfered in previous elections here, the Conservatives doctoring an interview with Labour’s Keir Starmer, and a rape survivor calling on the Welsh secretary to quit.”

At this point Evans begins to awkwardly laugh, before Derbyshire calling the start of the campaign a ‘disaster’ and adding it is ‘not funny’.

Evans replies: “I know where you’re coming from on that.”

He also says that Rees-Mogg had ‘misspoken’ and since apologised for his comments, and adds he “doesn’t know too much about [the other things referenced], to be honest.”

“All I know is there is a long, long way to go and each of the parliamentary parties will have stories like this.

“It could have been better but the public will be judging us on how we have behaved over the last two years since the general election.”