Rishi Sunak’s Covid inquiry appearance was a reminder why he was once Britain’s most popular politician

Prime time

IT’S hard to recall now but three years ago Rishi Sunak was Britain’s most popular politician.

His Covid inquiry appearance was a reminder why.

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It’s true he was mainly liked for the bailouts which saved vast numbers of jobs.

But it was also that he was ­decisive, clear, well-prepared and on top of detail.

And so he was yesterday.

The probe’s lawyer tried to paint Eat Out To Help Out as a reckless gamble with lives, a false narrative peddled by the Left.

The PM rightly bulldozed it.

Pubs and restaurants were already open in August 2020 under strict Covid-secure rules.

His discount scheme merely encouraged hesitant punters to use them — and it successfully kept those businesses afloat.

There is no serious evidence it triggered a surge in infections.

Yes, there was a second wave weeks later . . . but that coincided with schools reopening — and large parts of Europe had it too.

Meanwhile we have Mr Sunak to thank for Boris Johnson NOT imposing a pointless “circuit-breaker” lockdown in late 2020.

And for helping convince him a year later — after studying the data — that the incoming Omicron variant which had top medics in a baseless panic was relatively harmless and not worth another crippling lockdown.

These days Mr Sunak is copping flak from all sides.

His Covid performance, however, remains extremely hard to fault.

Party poopers

THE campaign by self-important Tory backbenchers to finally drive their party off a cliff reaches a thrilling climax today.

Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda deterrent is the only serious policy to stop the small boats, since Labour has given up on it.

The Government and its lawyers insist it will work.

Some Tories reckon it’s too soft, others too hard.

Have they got the faintest idea how ridiculous their pompous grandstanding and serial infighting looks to voters?

The public wants illegal migration stopped.

There’s no better plan.

If ultimately it fails, then it fails. Vote it through and let’s find out.

Eco worriers

HOW’S this for brass neck?

Extinction Rebellion, having driven its brainwashed cultists mad with hellish visions of a fiery apocalypse, is now offering them trauma counsellors.

But it’s not climate change itself causing their problems.

Just the unscientific, hyperbolic doom-mongering of their own organisation, shrieking about “genocide” and Earth being “on fire”.

This mania seems even more rife at Just Stop Oil, the other delusional mob founded by weird zealot Roger Hallam.

Some may indeed need therapists.

They need lawyers, too, though — to sue the cranks who made them ill.