Sincere PM Or Ai-Generated Training Video? You Decide...

It must have felt like a holiday to Rishi Sunak. Phone turned off. No star chamber” on his back; no Tory backbenchers with their halitosis, hysterical WhatsApp groups or deranged ultimata. Instead of Bill Cash, just a chat with that awfully polite KC, Hugo Keith.

- JOE MURPHY

The prime minister started with an apology so long and humble and sweeping and contrite that it was either terribly, terribly sincere or utterly meaningless. He was “deeply sorry” to those who lost loved ones and everyone who “suffered in various different ways throughout the pandemic”. He did not, it was noted, express sorrow for any of his own policies, not even the one Sir Chris Whitty dubbed Eat Out to Help Out The Virus. So, on balance, maybe not so sorry.

Sunak told us he had reflected a lot and wanted to give evidence “in the spirit of constructive candour”. With other politicians, a promise to be candid would quicken the pulse a bit. In Sunak’s case, it presaged a lot of tedious monologues devoid of colour. Like an AI-generated training video, his words droned in perfect order and were hypnotically forgettable.

The first interesting exchange was over another bunch of missing WhatsApp messages. Sunak said he had “multiple phone changes” (so many new iPhones to choose from!) and never used WhatsApp for chatter. Had nobody asked him to save his data?” asked Keith. “I do not recall anyone in my office making that recommendation,” replied Sunak, ever so candidly.

Funnily enough, there were an awful lot of things the PM couldn’t recall, despite all that candour. Treasury memos, conversations, letters, even entire meetings slipped from his memory muscle’s grasp. Asked about the session that Boris Johnson organised with lockdown-sceptic scientists, Sunak replied: “I don’t have strong recollections of that meeting.”