Not another one. We’ve only just recovered from the last election debate. A fairly tawdry head to head between Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer in which all we learned was that the prime minister would tell any lie to try to stay in Downing Street. He’s even moved on to lying that he isn’t a liar. We’re now in Boris Johnson territory. But the debates come thick and fast and it’s now the BBC’s turn. This was a seven-way debate between the leaders of Plaid Cymru and Reform, the co-leader of the Green party and the Scottish National party’s Westminster leader, along with the Labour and Liberal Democrat deputy leaders and the Conservative leader of the House of Commons. It promised to be a 90-minute shouting match in which almost no one had the time to talk in anything but soundbites. And who would be watching anyway on a Friday night?
One person who would definitely not be watching was Rishi Sunak. He would be in a padded cell. The first person in history to section himself. It’s hard to imagine a worse prime minister. Nostalgia plays tricks with the mind, but Liz Truss would have made a better fist of it. She may have looked stupid and out of her depth but at least she would have stayed for the duration. And every minute away from Downing Street would have been one where she couldn’t tank the economy. Win-win. But Rish! knew better. He always thinks he does. Comes with the combined brain power of Isaac Levido and James Forsyth. Two men in search of a connecting synapse. Rish had come up with the bright idea to brave his way through the British D-day commemoration – a bit of a yawn for him – but then to shoot off home and miss the big international service of remembrance. In 1944 tens of thousands of terrified men had crossed the Channel knowing that many of them would not come back. Eighty years on with just a handful of survivors still alive, Rish! had taken the first helicopter out of Caen. Just imagine if the troops had all taken the easy option. Au revoir, mes braves! But our heroic D-day Dodger had things to do. Speeches to write on the importance of national service. And he didn’t want to have to hang around for all that EU glad-handing. Hugs with Joe Biden, Olaf Scholz, Emmanuel Macron and Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Leave that to collaborateurs like Keir Starmer. There was no way he was going to stand to attention through the Ode to Joy. That was for losers. Come Friday morning, Rish! had had a rethink after he had been slated for sneaking off home to give an interview to ITV about why it was OK to lie about being a liar. So it was a very chastened Sunak who gave a brief statement to Sky News. The classic nonapology apology. Just meaningless, charmless words. Words without affect.
He was sorry but … His diary had been booked weeks ago. He just couldn’t see the problem. D-day was a time for doing the bare minimum. He’d gone to the Brit bash. Surely that was enough? He didn’t seem to realise that Zelenskiy had found time to attend while in the middle of a war with Russia. And other parties shouldn’t politicise his absence. Said the man who had disrespected his own nation, dishonoured his office, by bunking off to give a campaign interview. We look forward to his next moves. Murdering pandas in London Zoo. Demolishing Battersea Dogs Home. Exiling Judi Dench. Closing all hospitals. Hanging Paddington Bear. Penny Mordaunt seldom smiles at the best of times. But she looked grimmer than usual as she took her place in the lineup for the debate. Sunak’s afternoon flit may well end her parliamentary career. Portsmouth is a naval town and marginal with it. Inevitably the first question was on Sunak’s no-show. Cue a Mordaunt pile-on from everyone. Penny tried to go all Thatcher but fell flat. Left chewing wasps. She couldn’t defend Rishi and her only attack was to dare Angela Rayner to press the nuclear button to prove she was hard enough. Give me strength. Believe it or not, that was more or less the high point of the debate. The rest was turgid fare, notable mainly for being simultaneously deadly dull and extremely bad-tempered. Niche TV. From time to time, Rayner and Mordaunt would have a slanging match in which Penny shouted louder and longer to less and less effect. She will be embarrassed when she watches this on catch up. If she has a sense of shame. But otherwise you could have predicted what everyone was going to say and when as we raced through questions on the NHS, housing, the cost of living, the climate crisis and trust. Nigel Farage was his trademark Smuggy McSmugface, banging on about foreigners at every turn while exposing his complete lack of a plan for running the country. Just the unpleasant voice of protest. Rhun ap Iorwerth was almost a total nonentity. Not even the host, Mishal Husain, wanted to hear from him. Carla Denyer, Daisy Cooper and Stephen Flynn sounded the most reasonable. But then they had the least to lose. They can afford to be honest. Time began to drag. The audience started checking their watches. We were getting nowhere. The final thoughts of each contestant were almost devoid of thought. It was over. A relief for us all. Over on Channel 4 midway through the second half England were losing to Iceland. Happy days.