Rishi was all revved up for his manifesto’s Silverstone launch… but can’t escape this pile-up

The prime minister started late at the racetrack – and arrived in a German car. By the time the chequered flag was waved, you could see his inner spreadsheet recalculating the Conservatives’ election chances, writes Joe Murphy

Prime minister Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty arrive at Silverstone racetrack for the launch of the Conservative Party’s general election manifesto (PA Wire)

I’m all revved up and ready to go,” said Mel Stride, the work and pensions secretary, standing in front of the Silverstone racetrack. The location of the manifesto launch was an unexpected gift to sketchwriters, who had even better puns at hand: A car crash of a campaign. Going round in circles. On a road to nowhere. Wheels coming off. The pits...

With that as a warm-up, the question was whether Rishi Sunak would roar up in a racing car, sliding some doughnuts on the tarmac, crying: “Beat that, Ed Davey!”

Sadly, he and his wife Akshata instead climbed out of the back of a glossy black Audi A8 saloon. The vehicle was chosen by the Met Police protection unit – but could you imagine Margaret Thatcher arriving for her manifesto launch in a German car?

Mistake No 1 by the Conservatives was failing to lay on any breakfast for the press squad, who emerged “hangry” off the battlebus from Westminster. At the Lib Dem launch, they served pastries, custard creams and fruit, and hired a barista. Here, just a flask of plain coffee – not even a digestive to dip. There was a canteen, but the ladies there said Tory bean-counters had vetoed a free buffet as too expensive.

The great Sir Bernard Ingham, Lady T’s press minder, used to say: “Throw the sharks some meat or they’ll take off your leg!” In this case, a croissant might have soothed some hostile questions.

Party officials boasted that a Brad Pitt movie was being filmed at Silverstone, and that the PM’s speech had been carefully timed to avoid being drowned out by zooming race cars. Maybe they should also have checked the plot: Pitt will play Sonny Hayes, a top Formula One driver forced to retire early after a horrible crash. Sounds a tad close to home.

Meanwhile, in nearby Wycombe, Steve Baker, a senior government minister and right-winger, tweeted out of the blue: “What I’m listening to right now” – with a link to a Metallica foot-tapper called “For Whom the Bell Tolls”. Ouch.

A few weeks ago, Tories could talk about their “narrow path” to achieving, just maybe, a hung parliament. Not now. After two weeks of blundering, the government is not so much on the back foot as on life support.

Over in the big hall, the manifesto launch was running late. Twelve minutes behind schedule, the event finally started with a warm-up by Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, who took pains to remind us that she had gone to a northern comprehensive. She was followed by Ben Houchen, the Tees Valley mayor and rare Tory survivor of the local elections. In the interlude, a recorded voice intoned: “Clear Plan, Bold Action, Secure Future”, Big Brother-style, over the PA.

Finally, Sunak came out, to prolonged applause from an audience of Conservative activists and the entire cabinet seal-clapping on the front row. “It’s great to be at Silverstone,” he began, adding his own pun that there was “nowhere better to mark the fact that the economy has turned the corner”.

At least he supplied an answer to the question everyone present was asking: why on earth they were there at all. The reason, said Sunak, was that Silverstone represents the combination of hi tech and oomph that will drive Britain. “It’s nice of Brad Pitt to come to our launch,” he quipped.

This new Comedy Rishi seems to be a new tack. Taking inspiration from another Brad Pitt film, he japed: “The first rule of Labour tax rises is you don’t talk about Labour tax rises.” Ok, not exactly a rib-tickler, but they’ve tried everything else.

Sunak’s speech went off without disaster. It ticked the expected policy boxes, but refused to give the Tory right the raw meat they’d hoped for – for example, by fudging whether the UK might quit the European Convention on Human Rights. He even confronted his own unpopularity by saying: “I’m not blind to the fact that people feel frustrated with our party and frustrated with me. We have not got everything right.”

It was delivered against a backdrop of a union flag painted in different shades of blue – not too dissimilar to the Team GB kit design that a bunch of Tory MPs made a fuss about recently and that led this prime minister to lecture sports kit manufacturers about how they “shouldn’t mess” with national flags.

After a weekend of contrition over D-Day, the PM kept his head and managed to sound upbeat to the end of his speech, and got a predictable standing ovation from the seals. However, his countenance gradually became more doleful and defeated as he answered questions from a now distinctly hangry media.

First up was the right-wing outlet GB News, but the grumpy question was: “You keep going on about ‘be bold’, so why not be bold and pull out of the ECHR?” The croissant-deprived Sun asked the same. The FT cited disappointment over levelling up (on a day when the leafy blue-wall village of Cranleigh in Surrey got £300,000 in levelling-up dosh).

As the questions piled up, Sunak’s face dropped and his eyes clouded. By the time the chequered flag was waved, you could see his inner spreadsheet computing his chances and concluding with the word “defeat”. Not even Houdini crossed with Madonna and the Dalai Lama could escape from this pile-up.