Footage of Rishi Sunak deputising for Boris Johnson during the 2019 leaders’ debates has resurfaced, suggesting little has changed in five years.
Brits went to the polls in December 2019 after Johnson called a snap election, with the ex-PM diving his time between the JCB factory and refrigerated containers.
It resulted in “rising star” Sunak deputising for him during the leaders’ debates, and the clips make for fascinating viewing five years on.
Writing in the Independent at the time, political sketch writer Tom Peck tore into Sunak for saying “transparently absurd things” such as: “It is because we care so deeply about the NHS that we must get Brexit done.”
He said: “Shall we just pause and think about that? There is precious little else to discuss after all. Try and imagine, just four years ago, an actual vaguely sane person trying to claim that you can only sort out the NHS by leaving the European Union.
“The worry, of course, is that we’ve been swimming in this river of filth for so long now that we’re almost used to it. That someone can come out with something like this and we all just shrug our shoulders and think, yep, NHS is in a right mess; need to leave the EU.”
And, of course, he proved to be correct.
Sunak went on to become PM and, as Peck noted in 2019, the joke “was on us”.
Here’s a pick of the other nuggets of gold he came up with: