The incredible shrinking man: Rishi Sunak’s gut reaction is always wrong

The prime minister has chosen to pick a fight with the nurses - a battle he's never going to win

Rishi Sunak is the incredible shrinking man. The more you see of him, the less there appears to be. When he became prime minister, he had the appearance of a moderately successful - if rather over-eager - tech bro, brought in to save the Conservative party from itself. But that was a chimera. Because Rish! isn't even that successful. He's a politician with the fatal flaw of not being very good at politics. A man unable to convince others that he inhabits their world. Now he's just a ball of need. Desperate to be liked, but unable to make an emotional connection with voters.

To be fair, Sunak has the odds stacked against him. It's not entirely his fault the Tories voted for Liz Truss rather than him. Though imagine how useless the Conservative membership must think him to be if they went full on Trussterfuck. It's not his fault that Putin invaded Ukraine. But he has to take the blame for the Tories' record of 13 years in government when it's hard to think of anything that works better now than it did in 2010.