A trip to a petrol station taken by Rachel Reeves to promote her government’s fuel-duty freeze didn’t go as planned after she was heckled by a customer at the forecourt.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer was filming a broadcast interview at the MFG-owned Morrissons Hunslet filling station in Leeds, when a customer shouted a variety of comments at her, including “Get Labour out, get Keir Starmer out”, “Nigel Farage, go on Nigel”, and “Youse are useless, Labour party is useless.”
As he drove off from the forecourt the man gestured to English flags adorning the back of his van, asking the Chancellor: “We’ve got English flags on here, Rachel. Are we going to be arrested?”
Reeves responded by saying “I love our country, and one of the things about our country is good manners”, adding “Not very British” as the man departed.
Response to the incident has been mixed. Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride told Sky News that “on the point of good manners, she [Reeves] is right”, adding: “our discourse around politics should be civil and polite and that’s part of being British and that’s something we should fight for” – though he said that voters were right to feel “disappointed” in the government.
Nigel Farage, meanwhile, asked on X: “I’d like to buy this man a pint. Does anyone know how I can find him?’, while some social-media commentators highlighted that vocal criticism of politicians and a disdain for those in positions of power are quintessentially British values.
