Rishi Sunak isn’t lacking in energy as he goes into his final few days of election campaigning. He is, though, using that energy in some quite futile ways. He spent much of his interview with Laura Kuenssberg this morning arguing with the way she phrased questions and getting irritated that he wasn’t being given enough time to explain himself on key policy areas. That tetchy impatience – something Sunak never recognises in himself – has long been one of his visible flaws.
It isn’t necessarily the kind of visible flaw that puts voters off a prime minister. The problem for Sunak was not whether he had eaten enough breakfast and was a bit too hangry, but what he could offer up to voters as evidence that backing the Conservatives on Thursday is a good idea. He was questioned at length on his government’s record over the past 14 years, and after Kuenssberg listed problems with unlicensed services, taxation and living standards, he replied:
I just don’t accept that. If you look at education, I think education is one of the most powerful things any government can do to transform peoples lives. During that 14 years, thanks to the Conservative government, our school children are now the best readers in the Western world. Nine out of ten schools are good or outstanding, a huge improvement compared to what we inherited. Those reforms are all opposed by the Labour Party.
He had immediately switched from defending his record to talking about Labour.
That tetchy impatience – something Sunak never recognises in himself – has long been one of his visible flaws.
Similarly, on taxes, Sunak argued that he had taken difficult decisions for financial stability and to pay back the money spent during Covid. But he quickly added that ‘none of those things are going to be made any easier by a Labour government that would whack up everyone’s taxes by thousands of pounds.’
He insisted at the end of the interview that ‘this campaign is something that I am proud of, because this campaign has shone a spotlight on the fact that the Labour government is going to raise everyone’s taxes’. He added that:
I’ve been very clear throughout this campaign about the risk a Labour government poses, not just to our borders and our security and people’s pensions, but to everyone’s finances.
There was nothing there about how the campaign had showcased what the Conservatives had done, or could do – other than protect people from Labour. He is proud that he has run a defensive campaign focused on his opponents, rather than on his own party.
But where the tetchiness did affect how he will be seen by voters was in the way Sunak repeatedly argued impatiently with Kuenssberg about the content of her questions. Most of those questions included statements from members of the public about how their lives felt. And Sunak’s response was invariably an impatient ‘no I don’t accept that’ – which would have seemed curt if the question had merely been written by an interviewer, but it seemed like he was arguing with the country. This was his last chance to talk to the country and he spent it arguing that voters’ perceptions were just wrong.
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