No one can accuse Rishi Sunak of not being a fast learner. At his first three prime minister’s questions, Rish! was hopelessly outgunned. He looked and sounded like an out of his depth sixth-former. But at some point over the past few days, Sunak has got hold of a Goldman Sachs assertiveness training manual. “How to appear pushy and confident when you’re actually dying inside.” Which turned Wednesday’s exchanges into an exercise in cosplay.
Still, the Tory benches seemed happy enough with their leader’s inauthenticity. Any improvement and all that. The backbenchers gave Rish! the odd half-hearted cheer – about as far as any Conservative MP will go in support of Sunak these days, given the circumstances – while Dominic Raab was positively ecstatic as his boss sat down next to him. Though that could have been because he had just heard that an establishment figure had been appointed to investigate the multiple bullying complaints against him. What a stroke of luck!
