Fury after Bake Off Sue compares PM to ‘s *** on a shoe’
FORMER Great British Bake Off star Sue Perkins last night faced a furious backlash – and even calls to quit TV – after she compared Theresa May to ‘s*** on a shoe’.
The presenter and comedian was urged to apologise after she made offensive comments about the Prime Minister on Channel 4 comedy chat show The Last Leg, which is broadcast live.
Host Adam Hills asked Perkins on Friday night: ‘How do you think Theresa May has handled this week? Do you admire her?’
Perkins replied: ‘In the same way I admire s*** on a shoe in that it endures and no amount of using a twig on it or power-hosing it will remove it, so her ability to cling on is the stuff of legend and I don’t want it near me.’
Actress Kathy Burke, who was sitting next to Perkins, smirked as the comedian launched her diatribe during a discussion about the Brexit negotiations.
However, other comedians on the show – Josh Widdicombe and Alex Brooker – sat stony-faced.
Conservative and Labour politicians reacted with fury to the comments yesterday, including Ministers who demanded an apology from the star.
MP Frank Field said: ‘There is a worrying trend in public life that people are getting more and more obscene and violent in their comments and are being allowed to get away with it. What Sue Perkins said crosses the line. Channel 4 and other broadcasters should not let her on again.’
Senior Westminster figures also weighed in on the row. Treasury Minister John Glen said: ‘Most people will find these comments incredibly distasteful. People who make these comments rarely have any conception of how offensive they are but she should reflect on this and apologise.’
Tory MP Damian Collins, chairman of the influential Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, said: ‘Her remarks are disgusting. This is an extremely challenging time for the country. We need to bring people together, not simply dismiss them in the most derogatory terms.’
Robert Halfon, a former Education Minister, said: ‘These luvvies think they can do what they want, say what they want, be as abusive as they want for a few cheap laughs.
‘Perhaps if Sue Perkins spent less time in luvvie-land and met ordinary folk, she would understand the great pressures a decent PM is under and the sympathy she has from the public, whether they agree with the EU deal or not. Perhaps she should do something uncharacteristically decent and apologise.’
And former Culture Secretary John Whittingdale added: ‘A lot of people have disagreements with Theresa May, myself included, but she is the Prime Minister and she deserves respect. It is very easy to monitor impartiality for news, but so much harder for TV comedy. There is a line between being funny and being gratuitously insulting and offensive and this crosses it.’
Perkins, 49, is best known as one half of double act Mel and Sue. She and her comedy partner Mel Giedroyc became household names when they landed the presenting roles on the Great British Bake Off in 2010. They quit the programme in 2016 when it was bought by Channel 4 in a three-year deal worth a total of £75million.
Perkins has reportedly amassed a £4 million fortune and her company Sue Perkins Limited had £570,000 cash in the bank, according to its latest accounts.
She is in a long-term relationship with fellow TV presenter Anna Richardson, with whom she lives in a £3 million five-bedroom house near Hampstead Heath in North London.
It is not the first time Perkins has faced criticism for her remarks. Earlier this year, she was criticised for telling ‘sexist’ jokes as she hosted the BAFTAs.
She made a string of ill-judged comments during the ceremony, which was broadcast on BBC1.
After she was welcomed on stage by a group of Scots Guards, Perkins said: ‘Typical of course, ten men blowing their own trumpets before a woman even so much as opens her mouth.’
Good Morning Britain host Piers Morgan reacted: ‘Why is Sue Perkins allowed to make a series of crass, crude, sexist jokes about men, when a male host would see his career crucified for doing the same to women?’
Perkins did not respond to a request for comment last night. Channel 4 declined to comment.