Rishi’s found his happy place: unhappily, it’s on GB News

“Perfect!” beamed Rishi Sunak at the first easy-peasy question. “Great question,” he smiled after another underarm delivery. The prime minister actually clapped with glee when invited by an assistant head of a private school to trash Keir Starmer’s plans… for VAT on private schools like his own.

Welcome to the brave new broadcasting world of GB News, where even a robotic, out-of-touch Tory prime minister with an approval rating of minus 48 can be made to look vaguely competent.

How on earth did Sunak get such a soft ride at the start of what was billed as “his worst week”, a week when higher inflation is tipped, a possible recession declared and the Tory party braced for two by-election disasters?

This isn’t how the event was billed. GB News announced a brave new format for its “People’s Forum”, with an audience of “100 undecided voters” asking anything they liked, without any moderator to get between them and the PM.

So far, so promising. We all remember Sharron Storer derailing Tony Blair’s 2001 campaign, and the woman that Gordon Brown had to apologise to after he called her a bigot, and Brenda from Bristol. Members of the public are a dangerous and unpredictable breed that spin doctors keep their masters well away from.

However, the bunch invited to quiz Sunak in an empty club in the red-wall town of Newton Aycliffe were not as feisty as Sharron or Brenda. To say the room was buzzing would be a lie. Most looked half asleep, not so much Mondeo Man, as Blair’s 1997 target voters were dubbed, but Mogadon men and women. This may, of course, be a normal symptom of being a GB News viewer.

Presenter Stephen Dixon began by asking Sunak to make some opening remarks. “Perfect,” said a shirt-sleeved PM, who promised voters “peace of mind”, “a brighter future” for their kids and “renewed pride in our country”: phrases we will hear ad nauseam over coming months.

David from Darlington asked if the Tory government had “delivered anything of substance and value” with its 80-seat majority. “Perfect,” said the PM, who used up three minutes on shifting Treasury jobs to Darlington and how freeports would revive the North East.

Alex, a student from London, wondered whether waiting lists would fall. Sunak was happy to remind Alex his dad was a doctor and his mum a pharmacist, so he was “from an NHS family”, and if it wasn’t for all those striking doctors, waiting lists would be plummeting.

A moderator might have butted in here to point out that England has a shortage of 50,000 doctors, with just 2.9 per 1,000 people compared with Germany’s 4.3 and maybe the Tories after 14 years in charge might be held responsible for that. However, GB News decided not to butt in, so the PM went unchallenged for a full three and a half minutes.

Linda from Middleton wanted to know why Sunak was “so adamant about Rwanda”. Sunak enjoyed almost four minutes painting his “stop the boats” efforts as a huge success, though a moderator might have pointed out that Rwanda was branded unworkable by the PM’s own immigration minister, who resigned.

Things suddenly got lively. Shaking with rage, John Watt launched a tirade about people “left to rot” after being diagnosed as injured by the Covid vaccine. “I want you to look into my eyes,” he glowered. “I want you to look at the pain, the trauma and the regret I have in my eyes.” He looked ready to deck the PM who mumbled about looking into his case.

Julie, a pharmacy technician in a mental hospital, said conditions in the NHS were the worst she had seen in 25 years. Sunak’s legendary tin ear took this as another opportunity to point out that his mum was a pharmacist. “I spent most of my childhood doing what you’re doing now,” he trilled.

Hang on: young Sunak delivered medicines on his bicycle, which is somewhat different to coping with the intense pressures of a mental health unit. But thanks to the show’s format, he babbled away, uninterrupted, and Julie’s point went unanswered.

The programme ended in farce when Dixon produced a box of questions submitted by viewers which Sunak ignored, instead asking the audience to quiz him on the economy, cost of living and taxes. John from Glasgow obliged by asking why taxes in SNP-run Scotland were so much higher when services were “inferior”. Were they handpicked by Conservative HQ?

Quizzed after the show, one member of the audience said nothing had altered her vote, which would go to the Conservatives – a statement that suggests she wasn’t terribly “undecided” in the first place. GB News later produced a straw poll that found 50 per cent of the audience would now vote for Sunak, with just 14 per cent for all the other parties combined.

They called it “a bombshell”, but all it blew up was the TV station’s credibility.