General election 2024: Impassioned Question Time audience puts leaders on the spot

Sir Keir Starmer had moments of difficulty, especially over his past support for Jeremy Corbyn.

This is especially sensitive for Sir Keir not just because Mr Corbyn arouses strong feelings both among his supporters and detractors – but also because it gets to a much more fundamental question: honesty.

Notably, he said something I’ve not heard him say before – that though he never thought Mr Corbyn would win, he thinks he would have been a better prime minister than Boris Johnson.

That’s especially striking because Labour’s general election campaign is pitched particularly at voters who chose Mr Johnson over Mr Corbyn in 2019. Remember Sir Keir subsequently booted Mr Corbyn out of the Labour fold, and he is now standing against Labour as an independent.

The Labour campaign will be much happier with the moment when Sir Keir was asked a potentially awkward question about his position on transgender rights and he managed in response to hit upon some core themes of his campaign, about how he wanted to bring the country together. He won a round of applause for that.

Remember that Sir Keir’s overriding task at the moment is to not mess up, to avoid major errors. His campaign will feel that he managed to get through the session relatively unscathed.

Mr Sunak had a different mission. As things stand he is seeking a way to transform the dynamic of this election campaign. After an extremely difficult 24 hours for the Conservatives, Mr Sunak bounded on to the stage with pep in his step.

But the brutal reality of his position was exposed instantly. Good news, prime minister, you got the fastest round of applause. Bad news: it was for the member of the public demanding to know if you feel “embarrassed” to be leader of the Conservative Party.

That set a tone. So many members of the audience were visibly furious with Mr Sunak, even those who did not speak.

The prime minister did get some chances to set out his stall. When one woman told him that, for her, the election was about immigration, Mr Sunak responded that illegal immigration “undermines the sense of fairness our entire country is built on”, before touting the Rwanda plan.

It was a rare opportunity for him to deliver one of the messages which he had hoped would sit at the heart of this election campaign. Another came when he had the opportunity to talk about inflation having fallen to 2% yesterday, saying “that was something I said I’d do and I’ve done it.”

The frustration for Mr Sunak and his team will be that they have spent so long being blown off course by mishaps past and present – both last night and throughout the past four weeks.