How Sunak passed the Netanyahu test (for all the good it will do)

For a man not overly blessed with gravitas or natural human magnetism, the British prime minister stood on the world stage with his Israeli counterpart and turned on the compassion and personal charm. So what did he achieve, asks Tom Peck

Shoulder to shoulder: Rishi Sunak with Benjamin Netanyahu (EPA)

Since the House of Commons returned on Monday, its members have retreated into the safe and easy world of grave words. What choice have they had? They’ve condemned with one breath but urged caution with the next, and looked each other squarely in the eye in the reassuring comfort of agreement. It is a formality to be gone through. Not much sound. Not much fury. Signifying not much at all.

But words aren’t always easy. Very occasionally they are almost unimaginably difficult. Words are a politician’s currency, their casino chips, and rarely in life can you find yourself more exposed, and with more on the table, than standing behind a lectern in Tel Aviv, at an unimaginable time like this, next to as wily an operator as Benjamin Netanyahu.

Rishi Sunak is not blessed with the gravitas or the natural human magnetism that is common among people in his rarefied line of work. But he has some personal charm, a compassionate manner, and also, it turns out, the fortitude not to be outmanoeuvred.