Sunak the underdog became a scrappy terrier – but will it change anything?

Luckily for him, the prime minister was not trying to please the hostile studio audience. Could his performance turn him into a real contender, asks Joe Murphy

Julie Etchingham chairs the debate on Tuesday night (PA)

“Gentlemen, please!” begged Julie Etchingham like an exasperated school ma’am at a rowdy PTA quiz night. “We will lower our voices.”

Unexpectedly, the disrupter in the room, who kept talking over both his opponent and the chair was the usually well-mannered prime minister, proving that nobody tears up the Queensberry rules quicker than a posh boy with his back to the wall.

Edifying it was not. But the first leader’s debate of the 2024 election was undeniably livelier than the dreary arguments between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn in 2019.

It started with all the worn-out clichés of the genre: drumming war music; two suited gladiators in front of moving screens that gave a queasy seasick feeling; a spotlight on super-calm Ms Etchingham, quite the ice queen.

After the 30-second opening speeches – nothing new in either of them – it went over to the first questioner. Paula from Huddersfield spoke movingly of her struggle to make ends meet. “All I do is work to live,” she said. “My savings are gone and I genuinely worry about the future.”

Uncomfortable territory for the mega wealthy Sunak, the hedge funder who married a billionaire’s daughter. Except that Sunak appeared to barely register what Paula had said, telling her his plan was working and adding, with tin-eared oafishness: “I know you are only just starting to feel the benefits of that.”

Feeling the benefits? Did he not listen to a word she said? Events soon confirmed that the PM was in a telling, not listening, mood.

Starmer was empathetic, telling Paula he was “sorry” for her difficulties. Paula looked appreciative.

Then it all went a bit like Friday night in ‘Spoons. “Why do you want to put up people’s taxes?” demanded Sunak of his rival. Starmer pointed out that Sunak had raised taxes including NI multiple times.

Sunak deployed a dodgy spin attack about alleged unfunded Labour promises. “You want to put everyone’s taxes up by £2,000.” It was a line he kept repeating all evening – and it took Starmer until the 50th minute (presumably after a half-time pep talk) to denounce it forcefully as “garbage”.

Janice, a cancer survivor in a wheelchair, told of her worry about the NHS being “broken”, prompting both candidates to play Top Trumps with family members who worked in the NHS.

Starmer bailed Sunak for promising lower waiting lists and allowing them to rise. Sunak claimed they were down “from when they were higher”, to which Starmer mocked: “This guy’s supposed to be good at maths.”

Sunak claimed he would have done better but for the striking doctors, which earned an audience groan and some laughter. “Ahhh,” said Starmer, “It’s always someone else’s fault.”

Harry and Deborah, both teachers, wanted to know about education plans.

“You heard him, Keir Starmer is going to raise taxes,” yelped Sunak, sticking to his only plan regardless of the question. “Desperate,” muttered Starmer.

Starmer looked hesitant at times but delivered some solid low blows of his own. While he was “foiling terrorist plots” as chief prosecutor, he taunted, Sunak had been “making money betting against the country during the financial crisis”.

The audience actually laughed when Sunak tried to explain his “Dad’s Army” plan for national service. “The army don’t like it,” pointed out Starmer truthfully. Sunak retorted: “All you can do is sneer.”

But Sunak was not trying to please the studio audience. His target was the tabloid leader writers and the Tory candidates who were on the verge of giving up on him.

Did the PM eat both fingers of his Twix bar before last night’s debate? Did he raid his mum’s pharmacy shelves of Pro Plus? Either way he stopped, briefly, being the doomed underdog and became a scrappy Yorkshire terrier sinking his teeth into the postman’s trouser legs.

Will it change anything? Probably not.