Rishi Sunak is becoming a brilliant and articulate exponent of a lost cause

The prime minister tried to be hyper-reasonable and absurdly optimistic in his final radio phone-in before his summer holiday – but not everyone was convinced, writes John Rentoul

Rishi Sunak had a harder time with Olivia, a doctor, who accused him of refusing to negotiate (AP)

The prime minister had obviously learnt from his tetchy clash with a BBC radio presenter on Monday, and came to his longer interrogation by members of the public on Nick Ferrari’s show on LBC determined to be polite, cheerful and thoroughly reasonable.

For more than half an hour, Rishi Sunak gave a sparkling display of the communication skills of which he is fitfully capable. He was slightly condescending to Jack, the first caller, who was worried about his mortgage going up. Sunak explained that banks were required to help customers who find repayments difficult by extending mortgage terms or switching to interest-only mortgages, before Jack revealed that his was already a 35-year mortgage. Not the best start.

But Sunak managed to keep the financial jargon to a minimum (talking of when Jack’s mortgage “comes up for repricing”) and turned his replies effortlessly to the fundamental argument that “the best way to help is to bring inflation down”.