C all it confirmation bias. The media were the ones who wanted endless debates – the public would have been happy with one or two at most – and so it was inevitable that the media would declare them to be important waypoints on the campaign trail. But were they? Sure, the debates were picked over forensically, but strip out the sound and fury and you’re left with very little we didn’t already know.
Rishi Sunak might have been even more thin-skinned and tetchy and Keir Starmer rather more wooden than we might have imagined but this is all surface trivia. Nothing new in concrete policy terms was revealed. Just the familiar half-truths and evasions with which we are all too familiar.
Manifesto pledges that almost certainly won’t stand contact with reality. Time and again, Rish! has played the trust card. The country can rely on him to tell the truth.
Sometimes you can only think he is taking the piss. On a masochistic urge to self-destruct. Because within minutes of him bleating on about integrity, the Tory press office was masquerading as “Tax Check UK” on Twitter, pumping out fictitious claims about Labour’s policies.
The man who wants to be believed has no regard for the truth. He just looks needy, corrupt and desperate. Meanwhile Nigel Farage can hardly believe his luck.
Having started the campaign as very much the outsider, not even planning to stand as a candidate, he is now living his very best life. Things could hardly have gone better. With the Tories lu.
