Pity Grazia magazine, which is in damage control for its toe curling interview with the Prime Minister and his wife, Akshata Murty. The Q&A was filmed ahead of International Women’s Day to find out how “the country’s most high-profile couple share domestic duties,” but has been described as “tone deaf” and “out of touch”.
There was such a glut of negative reaction on Grazia’s Instagram feed, where clips were posted yesterday, that the magazine has since amended its write-up of the interview, adding a line to note that Sunak and Murty are juggling chores “under phenomenally different circumstances to the rest of us: one of them is running the country and their combined wealth of more than £700m no doubt affords them help.”
Revelations in the Q&A, filmed in the flat above No10, include the fact that Rishi Sunak spends his free time reorganising the dishwasher after his wife has loaded it, and sometimes leaves the office in the middle of the day to go back upstairs and make the bed. His favourite chore? “Hard choice: dishwasher-stacking, making bed. Both have a satisfying ending.”
If the No10 press team were hoping to humanise Sunak, it’s been something of a flop. Grazia has lost nearly a thousand Instagram followers and the videos have been flooded with critical comments from high-profile women, including author Bella Mackie, influencer Camille Charriere, and BBC presenter Yasmin Evans.
Does this prove that the Prime Minister is social media kryptonite? As we reported last month, the lads at Topjaw suffered a similar fate when they uploaded an interview with Sunak. Topjaw frontman Jesse Burgess asks chefs and celebrities for their London restaurant recommendations, in a well-loved format that racks up millions of views across Instagram and TikTok. But so swift was the torrent of criticism on their video with the PM that they deleted it within minutes. That’s one way to quell the mob.
