In one sense at least, Sunak has shown he truly is the heir to Blair

Rishi Sunak is good at interviews. He is quick, fluent, and explains himself in ways that people can understand even if they don’t agree. He is truly the heir to Blair.

Tony Blair’s greatest strength was Bipartisan Reasonablism. Sunak deployed the Master’s tricks even on the difficult subjects, where public opinion is divided (though it is mostly against him). He made the case for not paying nurses more in a way that sounded completely reasonable even if it was politically unwise. Yes, nurses are exceptional, he agreed with Piers Morgan, and yes, they should be treated differently, which is why they alone had a pay rise when other public sector workers didn’t.

But if the nurses were paid even more, he said, the money would have to come from taxes or from cuts to other public spending, and if lots of public sector workers were paid more it would keep inflation going, which wouldn’t help anyone, including nurses. It is an argument that might have more support among voters than the top lines of virtue-signalling opinion polls suggest.