Who won the Sky News general election TV battle? Our writers give their verdicts

Winner of the Sky debate was Grimsby Town Hall: its mural looks gorgeous. Runner up? Beth Rigby. Her questions were rigorous; the opening interrogation of Keir Starmer’s love affair with Jeremy Corbyn was compelling.

As for the candidates, Starmer came off as tedious, Sunak as tetchy. Keir’s first mention of daddy toolmaker earned a big laugh; he was accused of being a robot and replied with a series of ones and zeroes. Nevertheless, his claim that the country is broken went down well. You can tell he’s going to win.

As for Rishi, he took a battering from an audience that seemed drawn from a representative cross-section of the far-Left. He apologised profusely for leaving D-Day early (so much attention has gone into it, you’d imagine he cost us the Second World War), but when Beth challenged his numbers on debt, migration and the NHS, there was a flash of the “furious calculator”.

The real downer was the audience. As these debates go on, one grows exhausted with the candidates, obviously, but also with the public – who sit with arms folded, demanding billions for their sector and booing when the answer doesn’t reflect their lived experience.

“Police numbers are at a high,” said the PM with a sigh – instantly disbelieved. He might as well give up.