QUENTIN LETTS: Beaming Rishi Sunak’s teeth shone like LED car headlights as he held ‘town hall’ style event in Accrington

QUENTIN LETTS: Beaming Rishi Sunak’s teeth shone like LED car headlights as he held ‘town hall’ style event in Accrington By Quentin Letts for the Daily Mail Published: 17:20 EST, 8 January 2024 | Updated: 20:37 EST, 8 January 2024 e-mail 5 shares 27 View comments Accrington Stanley FC, tenth in League Two, were at home. The visitors arrived not by coach but in an armoured motorcade, several being bodyguards with earpieces and bulges under their jackets. In their midst was the star striker, a skinny whippet with more hair gel than Jedward and so wired up, the caffeine was practically spurting from his eyeballs.

‘Welcome to the Wham stadium, Prime Minister. ‘ The ground is named not after George Michael ‘s pop duo but a local plastics storage company. Rishi Sunak was doing a ‘town hall’ event in Lancashire.

He bounced in wearing a blazingly white shirt and the tightest trousers seen since Aled Jones sang treble. Clipped to his belt was a sound pack which allowed him to perform without a microphone. ‘Rishi Sunak was doing a ‘town hall’ event in Lancashire.

He bounced in wearing a blazingly white shirt and the tightest trousers seen since Aled Jones sang treble,’ writed Quentin Letts ‘Hands free, his gesticulations went turbo. Arms flew, fingers splayed, wrists and elbows doing The Birdie Song at speed’ ‘His eyes bulged at the Conservatives’ alleged achievements. His voice crinkled at the things he had done, from rethinking HS2 to delaying the Net Zero bans on new petrol cars and gas boilers,’ Letts writes Hands free, his gesticulations went turbo.

Arms flew, fingers splayed, wrists and elbows doing The Birdie Song at speed. He puffed his chest to give expansive shrugs. He crouched like a Ski Sunday contestant at the starting gate.

‘Let me get straight to it!’ and off he whizzed, skidding into the year that will decide his fate. He pointed, made wave shapes, did the double-hand cocktail-shaker thing and flicked his digits Ali G-style. With the event set in the round, he had to keep revolving.

It was a giddying performance, exhausting to watch. His eyes bulged at the Conservatives’ alleged achievements. His voice crinkled at the things he had done, from rethinking HS2 to delaying the Net Zero bans on new petrol cars and gas boilers.

He had reduced international aid payments and settled strikes. He was Wonder Man! ‘It was the right thing to do. ‘ Modest cough.

Around him sat a few classically undemonstrative Lancastrians, chewing their eyebrows. They possibly wondered if it had been sensible to surrender Monday morning to this hyperactive fellow. One woman gripped her handbag.

A gent glanced at the mobile phone with which he was filming the PM. When playing it back, he’ll have to slow the speed or it will resemble a pre-talkies Charlie Chaplin film. There is, we may deduce, nothing wrong with the Prime Minister’s energy levels.

If he was like this at home over the New Year, one feels for Mrs Sunak. But Rishi’s performance should be viewed in political context. His poll ratings are as low as a submarine.

On the by-elections front, it has been a slew of home defeats with just one squeaky win. Westminster’s punditocracy expects him to be thrashed. Yet here he was, Mr Twangy, so super-frisky they must have slipped Spanish Fly into his morning coffee.

Last week, Sir Keir Starmer did a turn of his own, a funereal affair. And he’s the one apparently cruising to victory. Mr Sunak, determined to be perkier, set about his opponent with gusto and mocked Sir Keir’s lack of policies.

‘He hasn’t said what he would do differently. He just snipes from the sidelines,’ cried Mr Sunak. The nasal knight was interested solely in ‘political game-playing and saying as little as possible to get votes’.

Yes, and it’s working. So shut up, Rishi! But no. He would not be cowed.

There was ‘a new sense of pride in our country’ and voting Labour would ‘just take that back to square one’. ‘Right, guys! OK!’ he bellowed, ‘let’s have some questions. ‘ Jowly Hyacinth Buckets were addressed as ‘Miss’.

Oldest chat-up technique in the book. They were told, not a little patronisingly, that they had made brilliant points. Rishi’s teeth shone at them like LED car headlights.

Just as well he doesn’t drink or he’d have been asking for their telephone numbers. We were now a bigger industrial power than France. Our economy was outperforming Germany’s.

Our children were the best readers in the western world. Amazeballs. TV chefs use similar tones of delight when tasting the ambrosia they have just concocted.

Imagine Ainsley Harriott rhapsodising about his macaroni. Super cheesy. But part of me misses Johnnie Cradock and his monocle.

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