Good Morning Britain shared details of the pensioner Elsie’s regular yellow-sticker food shops after she became the main line of questioning in Susanna Reid’s interview of Boris Johnson yesterday.
Elsie, the 77-year-old widow who rode the buses around London to avoid extra energy costs, was featured in Wednesday’s instalment of the ITV morning show.
The footage showed Elsie in her flat unpacking her shopping of reduced mixed vegetables and reduced soup - after Susanna told Andrew Marr the struggling pensioner had been left “disappointed” with Boris Johnson‘s response to her situation.
As GMB showed Elsie in her home, ITV political correspondent Louisa James said: “She's become the face of Britain's cost of living crisis. Pensioner Elsie shopping for yellow-stickered food and riding buses during the day to save on heating.”
The Prime Minister struggled to provide a straight answer to Elsie’s case on Good Morning Britain after being told the 77-year old was cutting down to one meal a day and resorting to travel on buses to avoid rising energy costs.
The PM said: “The 24-hour freedom bus pass was actually something that I actually introduced.”
While the Prime Minister did not introduce the freedom pass, he did introduce the 60+ Concessionary Travel Scheme.
The Prime Minister said there are “plenty of things more that we are doing”, adding: “What we want to do is make sure that we have people who are in particular hardship looked after by their councils, so we are putting much more money into local councils.
“We have the particular payments to help elderly people in particular with the cost of heating.”
Pushed on what Elsie should cut back on, he said: “I don’t want Elsie to have to cut back on anything.”
But Susanna spoke to LBC’s Tonight with Andrew Marr last night and described her interview with the Prime Minister.
She said: “I’ve spoken to Elsie since the interview this morning with the Prime Minister, and she says how disappointed she is with what he said.
“Because she says there are people who are even worse off than she is, and there was no answer for them, apart from ‘oh I was the person who was responsible for the bus pass,’ I mean, as if she’s supposed to be grateful.”
Good Morning Britain airs weekdays at 6am on ITV.
