Defence Secretary Grant Shapps hung up on a reporter live on-air after being told he faces losing his seat at the next election.
A YouGov analysis on Monday suggested that Labour is on course for the biggest election victory in the party's history at 422 seats - putting Mr Shapps’ Welwyn Hatfield seat in danger.
"Have you seen that you are about to lose your seat according to the Sky News YouGov projection?"
— Sky News (@SkyNews) June 3, 2024
Defence secretary @grantshapps calls Sky's @SamCoatesSky live on TV.https://t.co/PAiZ4D1jU3
📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602, Freeview 233 and YouTube pic.twitter.com/fWlmQeFB1F
The poll was being discussed live on Sky News on Monday afternoon when the Defence Secretary called reporter Sam Coates on his phone, only for Mr Shapps to put the phone down when told the news.
In the clip, Coates asked: “Hello Grant Shapps, you’re live on Sky News, I’m in the studio with Sophy Ridge. Have you seen that you’re about to lose your seat according to the Sky News/YouGov projection?”
Then he added: “He just put the phone down on me, there we go. He did say hello.”
Mr Shapps later appeared on the network for a planned interview, telling Ridge: “Putting aside what Ofcom would say about doing that, I hadn’t realised Sky had turned into some kind of Michael McIntyre Big Show and was putting people straight through on air.
“I was actually coming on this evening and I knew I was coming on this evening and I thought we’d have a chat about the programme but there I was suddenly presented with the opportunity to go live on air which was not entirely the plan. But I was pleased to come on anyway.”
He added: “The only poll that matters is on election day.”
Under the poll, Justice Secretary Alex Chalk, Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt and former minister Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg are among prominent figures projected to lose their seats.
The prediction, which uses the multi-level regression and post-stratification (MRP) technique and carried out for Sky News, suggests Sir Keir Starmer's party is on course for a majority of 194 - the largest margin for any party since 1924.
It predicts that the Conservatives could be set for near wipeout across many areas of the country, including London, the North East, the North West, and Wales, with just 140 seats.
The data, collected from more than 58,000 people, is grim reading for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as it shows Labour has extended its lead over the Conservatives since March despite a recent policy blitz by the ruling party.
MRP models the outcome of the election in every constituency across Britain by identifying the views of different types of voters and then the type of voters in each seat.
The Liberal Democrats would win 48 seats, according to the forecast, with the SNP on 17 and the Green Party gaining another MP.
A separate MRP analysis, published by More in Common and the News Agents podcast earlier on Monday, had suggested that Labour was on course for its biggest majority in 23 years.
That analysis is based on voting intention data collected between April 9 and May 29 from 15,089 adults in Great Britain.
