Sunak v Starmer: The ITV Debate review – it quickly becomes truly infuriating viewing

As both men interrupt each other and evade simple questions, poor Julie Etchingham is forced into the role of despairing teacher and makes them raise their hands like schoolchildren

We have arguably become over-accustomed to telegenic, managerial slickness in election campaigns. Hooray, then, for the 2024 iteration of the Conservative party, whose campaign so far – with its drowned-rat Downing Street launch, eye-rolling audiences, photographs next to Exit signs, callbacks to the sinking of the Titanic and general air of hapless slapstick – seems determined to ignore the conventions of modern electioneering in favour of reanimating politics as pure cringe comedy. After two weeks of this pratfalling, observers have stopped invoking The Thick of It for fear of maligning Armando Iannucci’s peerless political satire for a lack of subtlety.

And yet on Rishi Sunak must go. He wanted six of these debates, no doubt reasoning that anything that might possibly shift the dial represents a gamble worth taking. Traditionally, they represent an opportunity for leaders to pitch themselves at the chunky percentage of voters who pay precisely zero attention to party politics between one general election campaign and the next. For millions of people, up to now, Keir Starmer will have existed as a just-about-ignorable ambient hum. Tonight is his first chance to introduce himself. Therefore, while his eagerness to inform us of his humble origins has become a running joke among Westminster insiders, the fact that his dad was a toolmaker and he grew up in a semi-detached estate house may be new information to thousands of undecided voters. Sunak, meanwhile, is the furlough guy, the rich guy, the helicopter guy, the losing-to-Liz Truss guy.

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