Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Bleak, vapid and banal: why are the Tory leadership videos so awful?

Tom Tugendhat delivers a short, bleak and utterly miserable piece to camera

The Tory candidates have released a set of videos presenting their claim to become Britain’s next prime minister.

Frontrunner Rishi Sunak has dubbed his pitch, ‘Ready for Rishi’, which sounds, unfortunately, like the cheapest option at a Hounslow massage parlour. His movie centres on his unstoppable rise to world domination. His mum was a penniless immigrant who passed her exams and worked at a chemist’s shop in Southampton. His Dad was a humble NHS doctor. Scratchy old Kodak photos show us the ‘Sunak Pharmacy’ in all its faded grandeur. He omits his public school days and his City whizz-kid career. And he says nothing about his mega-rich wife.

Clearly he wants us to believe that he moved straight from mum’s corner shop to the House of Commons. There we see him holding key meetings with wise decisionmakers and nodding earnestly as they build the future together.

Tugendhat wears just a plain white shirt. He could be a serial killer at a parole board hearing

Rishi positions himself as the sober alternative to three years of crazy-haired chaos. Safe, sensible, highly competent. He’s the super slick insurance broker offering you the best deal on the market with a crocodile grin and a clammy handshake (and, incidentally, a pair of ears the size of Hobnobs). But once he’s got your signature on the deeds, he’ll scarper with your cash and never be seen again. His spin is as brittle as cake icing. He vows to lead the country with ‘honesty, seriousness and determination’ rather than ‘by telling ourselves comforting fairy tales… that will leave our children worse off tomorrow.’ But his favourite ‘fairy tale’ is a tax and waste fiscal policy that will rack up debts for the next generation.

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