Rishi Sunak reveals a new strategy for dealing with the SNP

The prime minister was terribly polite to Scottish nationalists, but didn’t answer any of their questions, writes John Rentoul

Today, it became clear that this strategy includes not even pretending to answer the question (EPA)

I would say that the Scottish National Party came to Prime Minister’s Questions spoiling for a fight, if I weren’t reluctant to use the language of fisticuffs to describe the testing of rival ideas in the nation’s highest democratic forum.

What was striking, though, was that Rishi Sunak was determined to avoid engaging in anything as interesting as an argument. He decided from the start of his four-week-old premiership that he would “kill his enemies with cream” in a phrase Peter Mandelson once described as a maxim of Tony Blair’s.

Sunak learned from the Conservative leadership campaign in the summer – mostly from the mistakes made by his opponent. Liz Truss got into trouble for a jokey aside aimed at the partisan instincts of Tory members when she said she would “ignore” Nicola Sturgeon. Sunak has pursued the opposite strategy of paying respectful attention to the first minister and saying, as he did at Prime Minister’s Questions: “Now is the time for politicians to work together, and that is what this government will do.”