Yappy terrier Sunak goes straight for Starmer's shin

“Gentlemen, please!” begged Julie Etchingham like an exasperated school ma’am at a rowdy PTA quiz night. We will ower our voices.”

- JOE MURPHY

Unexpectedly, the disrupter in the room, who kept talking over both his opponent and the chair was the usually well-mannered prime minister, proving that nobody tears up the Queensberry rules quicker than a posh boy with his back to the wall.

Edifying it was not. But the first leader’s debate of the 2024 election was undeniably livelier than the dreary arguments between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn in 2019.

It started with all the worn-out clichés of the genre: drumming war music; two suited gladiators in front of moving screens that gave a queasy seasick feeling; a spotlight on super-calm Ms Etchingham, quite the ice queen.

After the 30-second opening speeches – nothing new in either of them – it went over to the first questioner. Paula from Huddersfield spoke movingly of her struggle to make ends meet. “All I do is work to live,” she said. “My savings are gone and I genuinely worry about the future.”