In the challenger v the gaffer election event, the audience was the winner

Sunak's interview about going without Sky TV as a child was the perfect warm-up act but Keir Starmer got a few laughs too

Well, there's good news for Sacha Baron Cohen: The Brothers Grimsby is no longer the most excruciating thing set in Grimsby. Asked to name something that might endear him to the public, the exhausted-looking prime minister basically spent a long time gibbering I like sweets." As someone famously deprived of a Sky subscription as a child, Rishi Sunak would not have been able to watch this televised leaders' event" when he was growing up. The tragedy is that Sky News is now free, so these days he'd be able to watch himself get repeatedly laughed at by the audience. (Not that that was entirely plain sailing for Keir Starmer, who seemed surprised to find his trusty my father was a toolmaker" line drawing a burst of jaded cackles too.)

Anyway: Starmer v Sunak. The challenger v the gaffer. They call Rishi Sunak the gaffer because he will do you a gaffe at least three times a day. In terms of TV spectacle and drama, last week's debate between these two largely had the flavour of leafing through a wooden furniture catalogue, with each leading man occasionally outshone by his lectern. That said, I keep reading that what every single one of the British people crave is for politics to be really, really boring. In which case: sorry, Mr Bates vs the Post Office - you just lost the Bafta.