Sunak Wants An 'Honest But Doesn't Conversation' Want An Honest Answer

Rishi Sunak bounded on stage to tell the watching crowds that it was time to have "an honest conversation about where we are, and how we got here”.

- Tom Peck

He's right. It is indeed time for honesty. He probably knows that the guy he did more than anybody else to kick out of 10 Downing Street had to go because he couldn't tell the truth. And not just because he couldn't stop lying, but because other people then had to lie for him. Like the prime minister's official spokesperson, having to apologise in person to the dozens of journalists it was his taxpayer-funded job to brief, every day, for knowingly lying to them for months.

So it's disappointing that Sunak's own team spent the build-up to his launch event telling journalists from certain publications that the event was full, and telling others from, say The Daily Telegraph, that there was still plenty of space to attend. And if he wants to have an honest conversation about "where we are and how we got here" then here is just one small vignette on the subject of "where we are".

One minute's walk around the corner, Kemi Badenoch was also launching her bid to become prime minister. "I will focus on people's priorities, not Twitter's priorities," she said. And just outside the room in which she was speaking, a member of her campaign team had scribbled the words "Men" and "Ladies" on pieces of white paper, then cut them out and stuck them on the toilet cubicle doors.

This, frankly, is as normal as the next few days are going to get. Kemi Badenoch is campaigning hard on banning gender-neutral toilets, and evidently feels like two bits of scrap paper sellotaped to the toilet doors is going to somehow make her look less stupid not more.