Jeremy Vine jokes about 'cardboard' Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss

Watch: Jeremy Vine pokes fun at Tory leadership debate with cardboard cutouts

Jeremy Vine has joked that the BBC 'stole' cardboard cutouts of Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss for the Tory leadership debate on Monday, 25 July.

In a clip posted to the Twitter account of Jeremy Vine's eponymous Channel 5 show, Vine says: "Mystery here at Channel 5.

"Our cardboard cutouts of Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak went missing. Now we know where they ended up."

Read more: Leadership debate viewers confused by 'awkward' cardboard cutouts

The camera then zooms in on a still from the Tory leadership debate of Sunak and Truss standing awkwardly next to each other.

Vine then says "we got them back" as he jogs across the studio to get the cutouts of the two politicians.

The broadcaster and author recently attacked the government for their handling of the Covid-19 pandemic after he contracted the virus.

In June, the number of people who tested positive for Covid rose exponentially with over a million people catching the disease per week.

Vine criticised the British government for not talking publicly about the virus and its impact: "That means there must be a lot of it about. Why isn’t the government mentioning it? Why isn’t the government saying: anyone vulnerable, you know, stay indoors. Look at my test, there’s a big red line there. There’s a lot of it around."

He went on to suggest that shielding for vulnerable people should come back: "Shouldn’t they be saying 'Lock up your daughters' or 'tie your mother down' or you know, just stay in if you are vulnerable. But we’ve not heard a peep. I guess they’re too busy."

Vine's co-host Storm Huntley also caught the disease at the same time.

The Jeremy Vine Show airs weekdays on Channel 5 between 9:15am-12:15pm.