Slippery Starmer took a bruising in the Sky News Q&A – but the real loser was Snippy Rishi

We are barely halfway through this election campaign, and TV audiences have started playing Keir Starmer bingo.

A groan chorused through the Sky News studio when the Labour leader managed to sneak, unasked, into his TV interview that “my wife works in the NHS”. Five minutes later, the audience erupted into guffaws when he found an excuse to reveal – who knew? – “my dad was a toolmaker”.

People, please stop! This sort of behaviour is only likely to encourage Starmer to carry on doing it. The manifesto launch will be laden with references to worthy Starmer relatives.

In the TV head-to-head a week ago, Sir Keir Starmer barely got a word in. In the latest event, he wouldn’t shut up. Whatever Beth Rigby, Sky’s political editor, asked him he would pick a seemingly random portion of his stump speech and start reciting it like a robot. Rigby is famously no shrinking violet, but she ended up pleading with Starmer to let her ask some questions. Her first blood was drawn on whether he had thought in 2019 that Jeremy Corbyn would make a good PM. It totally floored him, prompting a long series of evasions and detours.

He had at least one ready and frank answer. “Yes of course,” he replied instantly when asked if he was happy to pay higher tax himself. But for much of the time, Starmer was slippery as his Brylcreemed barnet over his policies, especially on tax, where he hid behind a formula that no hikes were needed for “the plans in our manifesto”. Yes, but what about the stuff that isn’t in the manifesto? The camera panned across the audience, revealing quizzical, unconvinced expressions.

Then it was over to the public to ask questions. A woman from Grimsby wanted to know how he would end poverty in the town. Starmer spoke at length about supply chains and local decisions and pride and ambition. Dissatisfied, she queried how he could do all that while refusing to put up taxes.

Jonathan, a junior doctor, wanted to know how Labour would end the strike. Starmer repeated his line about how “grown-ups in the room” would sort it, without actually revealing how.

Hussein, from London, said he would have to withdraw his children from private schools if 20 per cent VAT drives up fees. Starmer called it “a tough choice” but argued that it wasn’t a tax rise but the end of a “tax break”.

“I hope you answered questions as a solicitor because you don’t seem to here,” commented a man who later said he would not be voting Labour.

If Starmer had a testing evening, it was nothing compared with the monstering that the prime minister was given. People may be unsure about Labour’s leader, but they seemed to have made up their minds about Rishi Sunak.

From moments into his interview with Rigby, the heckling started. He started out wearing a sickly smile and talking in that sing-song voice he adopts when he doesn’t really believe what he’s saying, assuring us that he will “keep fighting” despite the evidence that the Conservatives might stand a better chance of winning if he locked himself away in a soundproof box for the next three weeks.

The old Snippy Rishi quickly emerged with all the predictability of the Incredible Hulk appearing when Bruce Banner gets angry. Rigby started examining his five pledges in detail, challenging him with embarrassing facts such as how debt is going up, not down as promised. “Yes, but it was always meant to come down over time,” retorted Sunak, stung, to a gale of laughter from the audience.

Pretty soon the crowd was clapping Rigby’s questions and heckling the PM’s answers. If he was so convinced that Rwanda flights would work, why call an election before a single plane had taken off, she asked to cheers. Because elections are very important, scowled Snippy. The audience actually booed when Sunak argued that waiting lists were up because of the doctor’s strike.

If any moment betrayed the PM’s tin ear for ordinary people’s struggles, it was when Ian, a local teacher, revealed his daughter had to cancel her house purchase following the interest rates rise, asking: “why has your government spoiled their dreams?”

Sunak replied that his help-to-buy scheme would help buyers “like your daughter, buying homes up to £425,000”. A gust of hollow laughter rang out in the hall. The average house price in Grimsby is £156,000, and the idea of borrowing nearly three times as much showed Sunak as completely out of touch with this red wall town.

Amy, from Leeds, was a former local Conservative branch chair and a “true blue”, but she said she was “ashamed” of him for being fined over Partygate.

“Trust takes time to rebuild,” said Sunak, who suggested she read the Tory manifesto.

William, a student, asked why any young people should vote for a party that seemed to be shunning young people. Sunak replied that he had two young daughters – though somehow we all suspected the young Sunak sisters would not have quite the same struggles in life as this crowd.

It was a brutal night for the prime minister. “Perfect,” he murmured when Rigby finally told him time was up. A snap poll found Starmer was the winner of the beauty contest by two to one. Halfway through the campaign we may be, but there was a sense that this election is already in its end game.