Half-starved Rishi, fresh from his latest 36-hour fast, pounced on This Morning’s Milanese like a hungry seagull
FRESH from his latest 36hour fast, Rishi Sunak went to ITV’s London studios to be interviewed on the This s Morning sofa. The jaunty show had just finished a cooking segment, ‘Michaela’s mid-week Milanese’. Spying some fresh-fried chicken in n breadcrumbs, half-starved Rishi pounced d like a seagull.
That fasting diet was the initial source of f interest for presenters Rylan and Rochelle. Rishi admitted he did not always manage e total abstinence during his weekly purges. ‘I do have the odd nut,’ he conceded. Come, come, Prime Minister, that’s no way to talk k about the Cabinet.
Why did he fast? He liked to have ‘a little e re-set, a little detox’ after his weekends (can n they really be so dissolute?), and to start his s weeks with good intentions. And so he eats s nothing between 5pm on a Sunday and 5am m on a Tuesday. Save for the occasional cheat. Typical politician. If daytime television is a test of prime ministerial skills – and since the days of Tony Blair it has indeed held to be so – then Mr Sunak may not be as disastrously placed for the next general election as some say.
He’s a daytime natural. Got the teeth for it and the skinny wardrobe. Plus the easy empathy, the ability to switch instantly from happy to sad, the mastery of soundbite, discipline of message.
On telly you need to be radiant, look constantly rapt, rinsed with amazement at the brilliance of your interlocutors, even when they are dingbats. Rishi’s good at that sort of thing. Spend much time at constituency fund-raising dinners, it starts to come naturally. Despite his shrink-wrapped trousers he managed to cross his legs. The left knee didn’t stop jiggling, the energy was almost spurting out of him. For once those Sunak teeth were not the most dazzling pearlies on parade. Rylan’s gnashers were a work of wonder. From a distance they resembled a gumshield or the chrome bumper on a Ford Zephyr. When the markedly tall Rylan was standing next to the PM, the height difference was striking. Library steps time.
Talk soon moved to other topics. ‘Let’s go for it!’ agreed Rishi, straining at the lead. All ears, he was. They’re big. He was asked about the Government’s ban on disposable vapes, NHS pay rates, the difficulty of bagging an appointment with your doctor, knife crime, and the dreadful triple manslaughter in Nottingham.
THEpace was frenetic yet the depth of interrogation fell some way short of Torquemada. No matter. Long politics interviews often become bogged by statistics. This inquisition was more interesting for what it possibly told us about Mr Sunak’s mood and readiness for the fray. On that front he was in unexpectedly good nick. ‘Are you feeling confident?’ asked Rylan during a brief section about the election. ‘I am,’ beamed Rishi. ‘Absolutely!’ Sceptics will justifiably point out that the manager of non-league Toebangers United will always say something similar when asked if he expects to beat Manchester City in the cup tie.
But Mr Sunak, as he skilfully injected references to his tax cuts and healthcare policies, did seem remarkably perky. The only worrying thing about his general sheen and sprightliness was his left eyebrow, which looked to me as if someone had been chewing it. Mark Francois, perhaps. One second they were discussing bubblegum vape flavours, the next it was mums’ worries about children’s coughs and sniffles. Then they were on to the bleakness of the Nottingham stabbings and how life for the young victims’ parents must be near-unendurable.
You have to move your face fast for such television, from disapproval to concern to sensible, soft solidarity, simultaneously altering tone of voice and body language, all while showing some teeth.
Daytime telly politics is as hard to do well as any dancing Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers did on celluloid. There will be plenty more of it during an election campaign.