I watched last nightās Question Time special on the BBC, where each of the four main party leaders were grilled by an audience of the public.
Four very different performances. John Swinney from the SNP was calm but fighting a losing battle with a largely English audience. Ed Davey was human, polite and seemed very genuine. Keir Starmer was competent, a bit awkward (isnāt he always?) but better than at previous similar events.
But Rishi Sunak stood out for me. He was simply dreadful. And bear in mind this is the Prime Minister, with an army of PR experts, spin doctors, media gurus and the like at his disposal. And he still managed to come across as an unlikeable, impatient and condescending tech bro who feels you just donāt āgetā his product.
He seems like a guy whoās never had to explain himself to anyone before. Someone who simply gets what he wants. Someone who surrounds himself with people who think like him (or know enough to act like they think like him) and has virtually no empathy for people who donāt share his background or world view.
He struggled to explain his āplanā for national service, couldnāt explain how heād make like better for young people and got particularly evasive when asked about his regrets. He was genuinely rattled by a couple of audience questions, looked puzzled and then angry and simply oozed impatience to get the hell out of there.
Like everyone else in the country (world?), he knows the writingās on the wall. Heāll be out of a job in less than two weeks and nothing he can do will halt an inevitable landslide win for Labour and the gutting of his own party. After fourteen years of mismanagement, sleaze and ineptitude, itās not a moment too soon.
The sad thing? I donāt think itāll change Sunak one bit. Rather than wonder why heās getting thrown out, he simply thinks the public are too thick to understand his āplanā.
