eat humble pie

Brown told the BBC: "I wasn't just emotionally and physically abused, there was all the financial abuse too. I didn't realise that I didn't have as much money as I thought I had. So I literally had to eat humble pie, live with my mum."

One said they thought they would have to "eat humble pie" and admit their initial instinct "was wrong" and that "Rishi has squared the circle."

Another Tory MP, who last week had been deeply sceptical that Mr Sunak could reach an acceptable deal, told the BBC they should probably "eat humble pie" as it looked like the prime minister had done it.

“The government has had to eat humble pie,” said Pratap Bhanu Mehta, a senior fellow at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi.

Dogged by a string of corruption allegations in the lead-up to the municipal polls, the ANC is now forced to eat humble pie and be the first to approach other parties about forming coalitions.