“Just try to act normal,” my best friend whispered to me as we attempted to sneak into a party. She, with the air of someone who absolutely was supposed to be there, breezed straight in. I was stopped and asked for my invite after grinning and making far too much eye contact with the bouncer on the door.
I have since learned that the best thing to do in situations which are not normal – like sneaking into a posh party or taking part in a live TV debate – is not to try too hard. This is easier said than done, but heeding my friend’s wise advice might be useful for Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer this Tuesday when they go head to head on ITV for the first joust of the campaign.
It is of course quite a brave thing to do. It takes an awful lot of confidence to drop your protective armour and act normal when you feel anything but.
Yet in the case of political TV debates it is even more important because while political journalists watch waiting for the tiniest slip which might indicate a shift in policy direction, most of the rest of the world will have one eye on their phone and a brain half........