It’s a hollow laugh. Each time he does it, it sounds emptier than it was before. Rishi Sunak’s snigger tells you everything you need to know about the inadequacies of his election machine and the extent of his own folly.
The problems were on full display yesterday, when the Prime Minister undertook a series of local BBC radio interviews. Recent British prime ministers have repeatedly underestimated local BBC presenters, who are often more collected and laser-focused than their national counterparts. Liz Truss made the same mistake. Now Sunak has discovered it for himself.
Naturally, people asked when the election will be. It was the “overwhelming” question listeners wanted an answer to, BBC Radio Tees host Amy Oakden told him. Sunak laughed. He laughed like a man who had never heard a joke in his life. He laughed like an AI approximating the sound of human mirth, but was insufficiently developed to master its cadence. It was like watching Orlando Bloom perform King Lear. There wasn’t a trace-element of authenticity in it.
“Why is that funny?” Oakden asked. “Sorry. Why are you laughing about that?” Sunak’s spirit died in his throat. “There’s a way that we announce general elections,” he replied, grasping desperately for gravitas, “and it would be done in a formal and official way.” On BBC Newcastle, the presenter asked the same question. Sunak laughed again. On ITV Tyne Tees, the scene played out once more.
Things got worse during a visit to a nursery in Hartlepool, when he was filmed listening to a mum talk about the problems with childcare. This was not one of those chaotic moments where an outraged member of the public accosts a politician in the street. She was calm, confident, eloquent, and specific, laying out the situation in detailed terms. There was a lot that Sunak could have learned from her about the situation on the ground, if he had cared to listen.
Instead, he simply looked at her with an empty smile, a face he applied to the front of his head while his internal life whirred away in the background. And he sat that with that smile, obviously utterly oblivious to what she was saying, for a good long period of time, before issuing a vacuous cut-and-paste speech about the Government’s policies.
Any Tory official watching will have learned to dread the election. They will have had dark, sobering thoughts about what their man will be like on the campaign trail in the daily white heat of the media spotlight, coming into constant contact with voters.
There are three types of politician when it comes to modern communications: Those who are good at it, those who are bad at it, and those who improve at it. Boris Johnson and Tony Blair are examples of the first, Rishi Sunak is an example of the second, and Keir Starmer is an example of the third.
You can tell whether a politician is naturally gifted in front of the camera within two or three seconds. It’s about whether they love it. Certain politicians’ eyes light up in front of the camera. They want to be there. They want it shining on them. They embrace it. Other politicians clearly find it an ordeal. They shy from it, or try to avoid it, or work to get through it.
Sunak and Starmer both want the camera to go away. At the start, they were both equally wooden and awkward. But now there is a difference. If you watch recent Starmer videos, he is relatively relaxed in front of the camera. He has decided to bare his soul a little, to tell the public about himself, primarily through his mother’s illness and his regrets about his relationship with his father. He now seems more like a complete human self. He has very clearly sat down and worked on his communication, not just in terms of presentation, but in terms of content.
Sunak apparently has not. We see three things from him: mock laughter and smiles, which are untrustworthy. Meaningless self-serving rhetoric, which is without value. And tetchy, barely concealed irritation, which seems to suggest something about his true character. He is a media disaster zone, a worst-case candidate whose failings are so extensive that only his predecessor looks bad in comparison.
There’s something more profound involved as well. It’s in Sunak’s empty smile as that mother spoke to him. He is not present in the moment. He is not listening. He is waiting for his chance to speak.
That looks terrible to voters. We’re all very good at assessing whether someone is listening to us. It’s a life skill you pick up from endless parties or chats at the school gate. We can spot someone who is waiting for the conversation to be over and someone who is intellectually and emotionally involved in it.
But it is worse than just that. It suggests the truth behind all the surface fakery, the internal thought that takes place while Sunak applies his rictus grin on his face. He doesn’t seem think there’s anything to learn from conversations with the people he meets.
I’ve seen many politicians interact with the public. Sometimes in front of cameras, sometimes away from them. The best will listen. They will discover things. They will learn from them. And that is not an abstract process. It is usually highly practical – what are the impediments to getting professional accreditation, what are the obstacles to getting your child enrolled somewhere, what are the difficulties in running a department?
A good politician – right or left, Tory or Labour – is seeing what they can find out about the world which would not normally be accessible to them in their ministry, surrounded as they are by officials and sycophants.
Sunak is not one of those politicians. He has no interest in the public. That tetchiness we see when the laughter fades – that’s not just frustration. It’s disdain. And the disdain is one of the chief causes of his misfortune.
In Rishi Sunak’s manic laughter, we see his political doom
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1
03.04.2024
It’s a hollow laugh. Each time he does it, it sounds emptier than it was before. Rishi Sunak’s snigger tells you everything you need to know about the inadequacies of his election machine and the extent of his own folly.
The problems were on full display yesterday, when the Prime Minister undertook a series of local BBC radio interviews. Recent British prime ministers have repeatedly underestimated local BBC presenters, who are often more collected and laser-focused than their national counterparts. Liz Truss made the same mistake. Now Sunak has discovered it for himself.
Naturally, people asked when the election will be. It was the “overwhelming” question listeners wanted an answer to, BBC Radio Tees host Amy Oakden told him. Sunak laughed. He laughed like a man who had never heard a joke in his life. He laughed like an AI approximating the sound of human mirth, but was insufficiently developed to master its cadence. It was like watching Orlando Bloom perform King Lear. There wasn’t a trace-element of authenticity in it.
“Why is that funny?” Oakden asked. “Sorry. Why are you laughing about that?” Sunak’s spirit died in his throat. “There’s a way that we announce general elections,” he replied, grasping desperately for gravitas, “and it would be done in a formal and official way.” On BBC Newcastle, the presenter asked the same question. Sunak laughed again. On ITV Tyne Tees, the scene played out once........
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