News

Jul 09, 2023

GB News' Tom Harwood eats his hat after election prediction blunder

A GB News presenter has eaten his hat after wrongly predicting the Tories would lose all three by-elections on Thursday. Tom Harwood promised after the polls had closed he would “eat an item of

A GB News presenter has eaten his hat after wrongly predicting the Tories would lose all three by-elections on Thursday.

Tom Harwood promised after the polls had closed he would “eat an item of clothing” if the Tories held a single seat up for grabs in the trio of elections.

The Conservatives lost Selby and Ainsty to Labour and Somerton and Frome to the LibDems – but held on to Boris Johnson’s old seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip.

Appearing on GB News’ midmorning show, Harwood ate a paper “dunce’s hat” he was wearing.

Before taking the hat off and tearing it into chunks, Harwood said: “I’m a man of my word.”

‘I’m a man of my word!’ GB News’ @tomhfh eats more than just his words after promising to eat an item of clothing on air if the Conservatives held a single seat in today’s by-election results. 📺 Freeview 236, Sky 512, Virgin 604 🖥 GB News on YouTube https://t.co/Wa58gYHxmd pic.twitter.com/DMXkqtZLPF

He told co-host Emily Carver he had spoken with Tories who claimed their vote was holding up – which he dismissed as “the worst expectations management in the world”.

READ MORE: Dan Wootton admits 'errors of judgement' as he responds to allegations against him

As Harwood ate his hat, Carver said: “Now this is what you should not do as a political reporter, you should not say such things when you don’t know what the outcome could be.

“We all pontificate, we all suggest what might happen, but I prefer to keep quiet until we have those results, because this is what you end up doing, isn’t it? Eating a hat.”

It is the latest odd food outing for a GB News presenter after Lee Anderson – the deputy chair of the Conservative Party – tried to make a guest on his show eat cat food earlier this month.

We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.

Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.

So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.

The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!

Callum Baird, Editor of The National

We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.

Please report any comments that break our rules.

Last Updated:

Are you sure you want to delete this comment?