Election politics as trail by daytime TV suits Starmer, not Sunak – Politics.co.uk

But before the Labour leader could don his cooking apron, he was asked a question likely vexing much of Sunday Brunch’s audience: “What are you doing here?”. “Shouldn’t you be on the BBC with Laura Kuenssberg?”. Starmer chortled before clarifying that Sunday Brunch is simply “so much nicer!”.

For us politicos, of course, Starmer’s choice of Sunday forum is worth some finer scrutiny. Last week, the wannabe PM debuted his six “first steps” for government at a major, party conference-esque rally. Having made such a significant announcement, a politician’s instinct would be to sell the new proposals on the Sunday shows — facing the usual fire from sceptical broadcasters.

Instead, having faced a series of interviews mid-week, Tandoori salmon was Starmer’s order of the day. And as the Labour leader cheffed, the conversation soon turned to politics — allowing Starmer to reach the reported 400,000-odd regular Sunday Brunch viewers who had decided not to tune into Kuenssberg or her rivals.

As such, the Labour leader isn’t alone in seeking to sidestep the mainstream news media with his messaging. Rishi Sunak kicked off his “long”/“shadow” election campaign last week with a major speech on security, before also popping up on ITV’s Loose Women programme on Thursday.

Nevertheless, in stark to Starmer’s showing on Sunday Brunch, the PM did not get off to a great start in suggesting he frequently watches Loose Women “in the back of the office of [No 10]”. (Loose Women doesn’t have a lie detector segment, but co-host Janet Street-Porter seemed sceptical).

Later in the show, Street-Porter, 77, harangued the prime minister in a sweeping broadside over the government’s support for pensioners. “Why do you hate pensioners?”, she asked as the audience whooped and cheered. “That is the only conclusion I can come to as a result of the spring budget”, Street-Porter savaged.

In response, Sunak defended his decision to cut National Insurance, which pensioners do not pay, in March — after doing the same in the autumn statement last year. He also cited his long-term commitment to the triple lock. But the PM’s answer was not nearly as well-covered as Street-Porter’s pointed questioning.

It’s striking that, only a few years ago, Rishi Sunak was celebrated as “Dishy Rishi” by many working in entertainment media. In sum, the PM’s appearance on Loose Women shows how significantly the former chancellor’s slick PR operation, constructed through Covid, has crumbled.

That said, perhaps the asymmetry of Starmer and Sunak’s recent daytime TV appearances flows naturally for their distinct statuses as the No 10-occupying PM and the relatively powerless LOTO. When it comes to Sunak, presenters openly gun for his and his party’s record in government. Starmer, conversely, is questioned about his working class roots and plan for power — in what amounts to a genuine fact-finding exercise.

In this way, compare just a few questions that Starmer and Sunak faced in their recent daytime TV appearances: on Sunday, Starmer was asked whether, under a Labour government, “we would we be able to have nice water and clean air to breathe?”. Later, the Labour leader was quizzed on “discrimination against bald blokes” by Sunday Brunch’s follicly challenged host duo.

Now, consider this representative question begged of Sunak on Loose Women:

“A lot of people are concerned that you cannot emotionally connect because you haven’t and don’t live the life that they have lived. So how do you connect with people when they’re saying to you that they’re worried … [about] knife crime, worried to sleep at home because of damp, when they’re worried to take a day off sick … because they don’t want to miss that paycheck?”

Such contrasting questions, as you would expect, informed the nature of Starmer and Sunak’s answers — so the PM’s slight skittishness might be explained in those terms. (Loose Women, regular watchers may also attest, is a crueller forum for a politician than the Sunday Brunch sofa).

But the following point is worth stressing nonetheless: simply put, Starmer seems better suited to the spontaneity of daytime TV and, generally, the associated off-the-cuff sofa banter. As the FT’s Stephen Bush pointed out after the Labour leader’s recent Sunday Brunch appearance, Starmer does “this chattier stuff really well”.

That Sunak seems, in a word, “tetchy” when questioned on daytime TV may of course be a consequence of the high office he possesses and the power he symbolises — but you cannot entirely dismiss the conclusion that that is just his demeanour, especially when challenged. (Consider also the awkwardness of the PM’s recent Grazia magazine interview, conducted alongside his wife, in which he highlighted stacking the dishwasher as his favourite household task because of the “nice, satisfying ending”).

In the end, it is well known that daytime television can be a dangerous endeavour for any politician for manifold but varied reasons. In 2014, then deputy PM Nick Clegg was criticised for appearing on Sunday Brunch during the international crises over Ukraine and Gaza. “As the world burned, Nick Clegg cooked”, one Lib Dem activist was recorded as reflecting.

In 2011, David Cameron jolted when asked by The One Show’s Matt Baker “How on earth do you sleep at night?” — only to realise the question related to a feature on the show. In 2016, Jeremy Corbyn rated his passion for remaining in the EU at “seven, or seven and a half” out of ten when appearing on Channel 4’s The Last Leg — a politically material gaffe.

Plainly, not every politician can cope with the daytime TV sofa. But Starmer, who sometimes appears stiff when delivering a standard set-piece speech, deals with the zanier format pretty competently. It bodes well for the Labour leader as we gear up to a hyper-personalised, quasi-presidential election campaign.

Sure, who knows what Janet Street-Porter would make of the Labour leader — but Dermot O’Leary devoured Starmer’s salmon. That is not a sentence I ever expected to write, but prepare for many more of this flavour as the long election campaign, fought on all manner of fronts, rumbles on.

Lunchtime briefing

Judge Rishi Sunak on his record, urges minister amid ‘richer than the King’ criticism

Lunchtime soundbite

‘The infections happened because those in authority – doctors, the blood services and successive governments – did not put patient safety first. The response of those in authority served to compound people’s suffering’

—  Chair of the infected blood scandal inquiry Sir Brian Langstaff’s comments as report finds scandal was “not an accident” and its failures lie with “successive governments, the NHS and blood services”.

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