Rishi Sunak wore his £490 brown Prada suede loafers to a building site in Teesside on Saturday.
He wore the flashy shoes on the same day he went to argue that inflation must be restrained before any tax cuts can take place.
The £490 brown Prada suede loafers are worth more than a week’s average wage in the area.
During the visit, where he secured the backing of regional mayor Ben Houchen, he dismissed accusations that he had been a “socialist chancellor”.
“I think the number one economic priority we face as a country is inflation. I want to get a grip of inflation because inflation is what makes everybody poorer,” he said.
“If we don’t get a grip of it now it will last longer and that is not a good thing. Once we’ve done that, I will deliver tax cuts.”
Tees Valley Tory mayor Ben Houchen said he was backing Rishi Sunak to be the next party leader because he was committed to levelling up.
He said: “The really important thing is that in this leadership contest we need to make sure that whoever wins is committed to the levelling-up agenda.
“Boris Johnson did a fantastic job with starting it off and we can’t afford for that to be left behind, and with Rishi having directly engaged with me on this, and having committed fully to the levelling-up pledge that I put out to the leadership contenders, given what he’s done locally as well, it feels to me like he’s the right man for the job.”
Last week, the former chancellor was accused of being “out of touch” when a video surfaced in which he suggested that he had “no working-class friends”.
The then 21-year-old told the BBC he has “friends who are aristocrats, I have friends who are upper-class, I have friends who are, you know, working-class’.”
He then corrected himself to say, “Well, not working-class.”
Sunak was on Saturday at pains to emphasise his more humble background as the son of a pharmacist.
“I learned the value of hard work in my mum’s shop,” he said.
“I also did my mum’s accounts, so you really understand the challenges of trying to make all the numbers add up and what it takes to run a small business.”
Sunak goes up against Penny Mordaunt, Liz Truss, Kemi Badenoch and Tom Tugendhat in the Conservative leadership race on Sunday evening in a TV debate.
The final five contenders will take part in the second televised debate at 7pm on ITV on Sunday.
