The PM’s scattergun attempts at image projection tell us nothing about who he really is
Have you seen the video Rishi Sunak put out last month wishing Stockton Town FC luck in the Northern Premier League final? Warning: don’t watch it if you’re hoping to vote Conservative at the next election or you won’t be able to. It’s dreadful. I don’t understand how he could be so inept as to record it, or why anyone watching it back wouldn’t wipe it unless they were working directly for Keir Starmer.
The problem is not the words he says. It’s vanishingly unlikely he had anything to do with the script, which is made clear by the way he delivers it. That is the problem. He speaks with enormous energy, enthusiasm, a big smile and not a trace of sincerity. No one on earth would think he means what he’s saying. Someone who understood not a word of English would nevertheless discern that whatever he was going on about was something about which he did not give a single lonely shit. Not a lie, just a statement with which he had zero emotional connection.
