A ‘pumped’ Rishi Sunak tried to get schoolchildren enthused about maths today as he stepped up campaigning after another blunder.
The PM was greeted with silence after he asked a group of youngsters in Grimsby whether they were ‘excited about the exam’.
The teacher stepped in to smooth over the situation, joking: ‘Wrong question.’
When Mr Sunak asked the Year 7 students at the John Whitgift Academy what they wanted to do for jobs, one boy replied: ‘Professional snooker player.’
The premier is gearing up for a critical Sky News grilling tonight, insisting he has not given up on the election despite cataclysmic polls.
Asked by journalists about his mood, Mr Sunak said he was ‘always pumped’, although he added that was because he is ‘fuelled by an enormous amount of sugar’.
Mr Sunak also played down mockery over an ITV interview in which he suggested he experienced hardship as a child because he had to ‘go without’ Sky TV.
Rishi Sunak endured an awkward moment with schoolchildren today as he tries to get his campaign back on track after another blunder
![When Mr Sunak asked the Year 7 students at the John Whitgift Academy what they wanted to do for jobs, one boy replied: 'Professional snooker player.'](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/06/12/14/86022385-0-image-a-16_1718199577100.jpg)
When Mr Sunak asked the Year 7 students at the John Whitgift Academy what they wanted to do for jobs, one boy replied: ‘Professional snooker player.’
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During the interview – which he returned early from D-Day commemorations to conduct – the premier said his GP father and pharmacist mother ‘put everything’ into sending him to one of the country’s top public schools, £52,000-a-year Winchester College in Hampshire.
Mr Sunak said today: ‘I was very, very fortunate that my parents had good jobs.
‘My dad was a GP, my mum was a pharmacist, and they worked really hard to support me and my brother and sister and I’m really grateful to them for that and actually more importantly than material things, what they did for all of us was instil in us a sense of hard work, and service, but also just provide an enormous amount of love.
‘And that’s the most important thing that they did for us. And I’m very grateful for that. And that’s why I say I’m very fortunate. But the reality of the situation is my grandparents emigrated in this country, with very little and in three generations, I’m sitting here talking to you as Prime Minister.
‘And I think that says an enormous amount about our country because I don’t think my story will be possible, pretty much anywhere else.’
Mr Sunak said he had been playing online games including Wordle, Connections and Solitaire to keep himself amused while travelling on the campaign.
Concern is growing in Tory circles that Mr Sunak’s mishaps have created a damaging ‘narrative’ in the public mind.
‘Everything he touches going to sh**,’ one party veteran said. ‘It’s kind of in Gordon brown territory where he listed every food possible as his favourite food, for fear of offending anyone.’
The unravelling meant that ‘nothing is a gaffe for Labour, and everything is a gaffe for the Tories’, they added.
In the interview with ITV, which he left D-Day commemorations in Normandy early in order to attend, he is pressed on how he is able to stay in touch with the struggles of ordinary people when he is ‘wealthier than the king’.
Journalist Paul Brand asks the PM if he ever had ‘go without something’ when he was a child, to which he replies: ‘I went without lots of things because my parents wanted to put everything into our education and that was a priority.’
![Rishi Sunak said in an interview with ITV that he had to 'go without' Sky TV as a child so his parents could to pay his expensive private school fees](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/06/12/00/86000197-13519889-image-a-62_1718150236713.jpg)
Rishi Sunak said in an interview with ITV that he had to ‘go without’ Sky TV as a child so his parents could to pay his expensive private school fees
![Mr Sunak said his GP father and pharmacist mother wanted to 'put everything' into their children's education so having no satellite television was one of the things they sacrificed](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/06/12/00/86000199-13519889-image-a-63_1718150239007.jpg)
Mr Sunak said his GP father and pharmacist mother wanted to ‘put everything’ into their children’s education so having no satellite television was one of the things they sacrificed
Mr Sunak squirms and laughs as he is asked what sort of things his parents ‘sacrificed’.
‘Lots of things,’ he says. ‘There would have been all sorts of things I wanted as a kid.’
He appears uncomfortable as he laughs again before adding: ‘Famously Sky TV. That was something we never had growing up, actually. But there are lots of things. But again my experience is obviously going to be what my experience was.
‘More important are my values and how I was raised. And I was raised in a household where hard work was really important. You had to work really hard. And family was important, service to your community was important.’
In ITV footage showing him sitting down preparing for the interview, Mr Sunak apologised for keeping Brand waiting explaining the D-Day anniversary event ‘all just ran over’.
‘Yeah, it all just ran over… it was incredible but it just ran over everything,’ he says, before saying he ‘spoke to almost every one [of the veterans in Normandy] there, I hope’.
The ITV interview airs tonight at 7pm and comes on the back of the PM’s grilling on a BBC Panorama special on Monday where he begged the nation to forgive him for leaving the D-Day event early.
![Mr Sunak spent his teenage years at the now £52,000 a year distinguished Winchester College in Hampshire near his home in Southampton](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/06/12/00/86000195-13519889-image-a-64_1718150243228.jpg)
Mr Sunak spent his teenage years at the now £52,000 a year distinguished Winchester College in Hampshire near his home in Southampton
![Mr Sunak says he hoped that he 'spoke to almost every one' of the veterans who were in Normandy](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/06/12/00/85903199-13519889-image-a-74_1718150392017.jpg)
Mr Sunak says he hoped that he ‘spoke to almost every one’ of the veterans who were in Normandy
![Lord Cameron poses with Emmanuel Macron, German chancellor Olaf Scholz and US President Joe Biden in Normandy after Rishi Sunak flew back to the UK, missing the international commemorations](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/06/12/01/85875307-13519889-Lord_Cameron_poses_with_Emmanuel_Macron_German_chancellor_Olaf_S-a-75_1718150441431.jpg)
Lord Cameron poses with Emmanuel Macron, German chancellor Olaf Scholz and US President Joe Biden in Normandy after Rishi Sunak flew back to the UK, missing the international commemorations
The Tory leader told Nick Robinson that he hoped people could ‘find it in their hearts’ to forgive his blunder.
Amid rising Tory alarm about the fallout from the D-Day row, Mr Sunak said: ‘Well, the last thing that I wanted to do was cause anyone any hurt or offence or upset, which is why I apologised unreservedly for the mistake that I made.
‘And I can only ask that I hope people can find it within their hearts to forgive me and also look at my actions as Prime Minister to increase investment in our armed forces, to support our armed forces, but also to ensure that veterans have a minister sitting around the Cabinet table with unprecedented support to make this the best country in the world to be a veteran as a demonstration of how deeply I care about this community and what they’ve done for our country.’