Susanna Reid shut down a “rude” guest who called her “darling” on the latest episode of Good Morning Britain.
On Monday (10 July), Insulate Britain activist Tracey Mallaghan appeared on the daytime ITV series to discuss the protester who threw orange confetti on George Osborne at his wedding to Thea Rogers on Saturday (8 July).
While the environmental group Just Stop Oil denied being responsible for the act, they shared footage of the clip on Twitter alongside the caption: “You look good in orange @George_Osborne – congratulations to the newlyweds.”
Addressing the event on GMB, Mallaghan said she would have rejected the request to perform the stunt as it would have been hard to adhere to the non-violence element of her protests.
Mallaghan, who is an activist with Insulate Britain, said she would have turned down the request to throw confetti over the couple – but only because non-violence was important to her, and she felt she couldn’t have promised she wouldn’t have “slapped” the former chancellor as well.
“I’d have had to say I couldn't do it because I couldn’t promise that I wouldn't have slapped him instead of throwing confetti,” she told hosts Reid and Ed Balls.
Mallaghan, who said she felt “really angry”, appeared to grow irritated when Reid questioned her decision to link the deaths of 330,000 of the country’s “most vulnerable” people with measures introduced by the Tory government when Osborne was an MP.
“George Osborne himself personally isn't responsible for killing people,” Reid said, to which Mallaghan replied: “You’re ‘what abouting’ arent you? You’re asking ‘What about if I’d been asked to do it?’, ‘What about if it had not been confetti?’ – I was just playing your ‘what about’ game.”
Reid appeared shocked by Mallaghan’s comment.
Balls then questioned the activist’s claim that Osborne “led climate denial” and was “really responsiblle for a lot of terrible media messaging” surrounding the subject.
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Insulate Britain activist Tracey Mallaghan on ‘GMB’— (ITV)
‘Do you not know that, Ed?’ she said, adding: “Come on, you need to do a bit of heavy reading.”
Reid, defending Balls, said: “Go on, tell us what happened?” to which Mallaghan hit back: “What happened with what, darling?” An unimpressed Reid replied: “Sorry, you don’t need to call me darling”.
Mallaghan brushed off the reply, and suggested she used the word as she is “working class”.
On Twitter, Malllaghan was branded “rude” and “condescending”, with one person calling the interview a “car crash”.
Also during the segment, Mallaghan accused Reid of making her cry following a 2021 episode of GMB featuring her fellow Insulate Britain spokesperson, Liam Norton.
Susanna Reid was left unimpressed with guest who called her ‘darling’— (ITV)
According to Mallaghan, Reid asking Norton if his house was insulated left her feeling emotional. Reid, confused by the comment, asked: “I still don’t understand why that made you cry?“
Mallaghan told her: “You still don’t understand why that made me cry? You don’t understand why you hearing about our children facing drought, famine and war, and your response being, ‘Is your house insulated, Liam?’ broke my heart, Susanna?”
The Independent has contacted Insulate Britain and Reid for comment.
