U.K. election: Everything you need to know
The Heritage Foundation's Nile Gardiner breaks down the upcoming U.K general election. Who are the important players, what is at stake in regards to Brexit and how will the outcome affect relations with the United States.
Boris Johnson was milking this escape opportunity for all it was worth.
The British prime minister, in an apparent effort to avoid being interviewed on live television Wednesday, retreated into the fridge of a milk delivery business he was visiting.
The farcical scenes that played out on ITV’s Good Morning Britain Program began when one of its reporters approached Johnson on the eve of the U.K.’s general election and asked him if we would come on the show.
“Oh, for f---s sake,” Johnson’s press secretary mouthed live on-air, drawing a stunned reaction from the hosts.
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“Prime minister? You have an earpiece in my pocket, you’re more than welcome to come on,” the reporter continued.
But Johnson ignored the questioning and disappeared into a fridge after walking behind a stack of milk crates at the business in Pudsey, outside of Leeds.
Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson carries a crate of milk bearing the Conservative Party campaign slogan at a milk delivery business. (AP)
Johnson then emerged with a crate of orange juice and said, “Of course I will” when asked if he would come on-air, before walking away again and ultimately avoiding the interview.
Johnson also campaigned Wednesday at a catering company in Derby, where he was photographed preparing a pie while wearing a “Get Brexit Done” apron.
Though opinion polls have consistently shown Johnson's Conservative Party in the lead, surveys suggest the margin may be narrowing before Thursday's contest, according to the Associated Press.
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All 650 seats in the House of Commons seats are up for grabs in the election, which is being held more than two years early in a bid to break the political impasse over Brexit.
Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson loads a crate into a milk delivery van. (AP)
Johnson has tried to focus minds on the potential of an uncertain result and a divided Parliament, which would endanger his plan to lead the U.K. out of the European Union on Jan. 31.
“This could not be more critical, it could not be tighter — I just say to everybody the risk is very real that we could tomorrow be going into another hung parliament,'' he said Wednesday. ”That's more drift, more dither, more delay, more paralysis for this country."
The Labour Party -- Johnson's main rivals -- has tried to shift attention from Brexit and to its plans to reverse years of public spending cuts by the Conservatives, who have been in power since 2010.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn campaigned in Scotland and urged people to elect a government that would “give real hope."
“In this city of Glasgow, which has some of the poorest people in this country, which has wards which contain the lowest life expectancy all across this country, they need an end to austerity,'' Corbyn said. “They need a U.K. government that will invest all across the country."
Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson prepares a pie at the Red Olive catering company while on the campaign trail, in Derby, England, on Wednesday. (AP)
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For many voters, Thursday's election is an unpalatable choice. Both Johnson and Corbyn have personal approval ratings in negative territory, and both have been dogged by questions about their character.
Corbyn faces allegations that he has allowed anti-Semitism to spread in his party, and is seen by some as a doctrinaire, old-school socialist.
Labour was embarrassed on Tuesday by the leak of a phone recording of the party's health spokesman suggesting that the party would lose Thursday's election because voters "can't stand Corbyn."
Jonathan Ashworth said his unguarded remarks were merely banter with a Conservative friend.
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Johnson has been confronted with past offensive comments, broken promises and untruths. This week he was caught making a seemingly unsympathetic reaction to a picture of a 4-year-old boy lying on a hospital floor because no beds were available.
Johnson ally Michael Gove said Wednesday that the prime minister was deeply concerned with the boy's plight but had suffered “a single moment of absent-mindedness.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.