Britons Laugh in the Faces of the Main Party Leaders

Wednesday night’s live television interviews with Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer were a far better watch than the pair’s first live election debate earlier this month.

Not because either of them performed any better than before—of course not! Rather, it was refreshing to watch the LabCon representatives squirm in response to fairly brutal (but not nearly comprehensive enough) attacks on their records, as well as to actual bursts of laughter from the audience.

Starmer was first up to face Sky News’ Beth Rigby, as well as a studio audience. He was skewered on his support for then-Labour leader (and his then-boss) Jeremy Corbyn in the 2019 election, a fact he has since been desperate for voters to forget. Last night, he tried (and failed) to justify his support by saying he was “certain that we would lose” the national vote.

He was hammered on tax, which he refused to rule out increasing, and even complained that Rigby was “pushing me over and over again” on the subject, as if that wasn’t her job. If only she’d also stopped the Labour leader when he said “I relish the chance to change our country,” and asked what this could mean in terms of migration (ignored in the first part of the programme), the ‘green’ Net Zero agenda and Britain’s relationship with the European Union.

The Labour leader then prompted a guffaw of laughter from a good portion of the audience when he mentioned—for at least the thousandth time this week alone—that his father was (drumroll please!) a toolmaker.

Those in the studio were clearly sick of hearing the same well-rehearsed line(s) in the place of an actual answer to an actual question—although Starmer, by this point stony-faced, the joke having gone right over his head, insisted that his childhood family life was “no laughing matter.”

He no doubt felt the same way when an audience member complained that Starmer had started to present himself as a personality-devoid “political robot.” His initial response of “eerm” inevitably gave the rest of the room another chance for a good laugh.

And that’s just covering the supposed ‘winner’ of the interview sessions. (That’s according to a snap YouGov poll which involved fewer than 2,000 people. I suspect that if Rigby had been listed alongside Sunak and Starmer, she would have come out comfortably on top.)

Sunak’s 40 minutes on stage were, indeed, even more uncomfortable—for him, at least. The audience—including, one would imagine, those watching from their homes—was delighted when Rigby reminded the Tory leader of this tumultuous Parliamentary session, which has seen three prime ministers, five chancellors, five home secretaries and six health secretaries, and jibed: “How do we know that if you won the general election, you’d still be prime minister in a year’s time?”

Rigby also tore apart the five failed pledges made by the prime minister at the beginning of 2023, prompting Sunak to admit that “we’ve not made as much progress … as I would have liked.”

In a moment that seemed as scripted as Starmer’s regular reminders of his parents’ professions and Sunak’s claims that “the plan is working,” Rigby told the prime minister that his “catalogue of broken promises” meant he “must surely see why so many voters think it’s time for you and the Conservatives to get your P45” termination of employment slip.

There were heckles from the audience, too, as well as some tough audience questions. One disgruntled parent asked the prime minister why his government had “spoilt their [children’s] hopes and dreams.” Another butted in while Sunak was celebrating a fall in inflation to say that “the bills are still the same.”

Rigby did give the Tory leader a chance to redeem himself, prompting him to tell the listeners “something about you that might make them like you a bit more again.” Few are likely to disagree that his response—“I actually have an appalling diet” and someone on the campaign trail was “genuinely surprised about the amount of Haribos [and] Twixs and everything else that I get through”—failed to hit the mark.

Neither Sunak nor Starmer said anything particularly new (never mind interesting) about policy, hence the lack of discussion on this here. But the audience was quite right to laugh at and scold them both throughout these cringe-filled interviews, given that they perfectly represent Britain’s failed establishment political class—not least in the fact they show absolutely no sign of changing.

Next, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage will again face representatives from six other political leaders Thursday on ITV from 8:30 p.m. BST.