I'M not sure being a tetchy, unsympathetic and belligerent man-child was the best tactic for Sunak during Thursday evening's leadership special edition of BBC’s Question Time.

Petulant, patronising and passive aggressive are not qualities that make people think: "Hmm, oh yes, he's prime minister material."

Sunak's campaign has been battered from the get-go, from its launch in the pouring rain with a drenched Sunak assuring us that he has a plan for the country, which did not sound remotely convincing when delivered by a man who clearly didn't have a plan for a rain shower.

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Then it was on to misfiring policies like a year of national service for 18-year-olds quickly followed by the D-Day debacle, when Sunak demonstrated that he couldn't even be bothered to do national service for an afternoon.

The purpose of buggering off early was to get back to London to do an interview with ITV which will be remembered solely for the attempt by a man with a private helicopter and heated indoor swimming pool to tell us that he really understands the deprivations faced by low income households during the cost of living crisis because his parents wouldn't get Sky TV when he was a kid.

But last night the worst prime minister since the one before him just hammered the last nail into his own coffin. The debate started badly for Sunak when a man in the audience asked: "Aren't these emerging allegations about betting on the General Election date the absolute epitome of the lack of ethics that we've had to tolerate from the Tories for years and years?"

It was all down William Hill from there.

Sunak replied that he was very angry about the allegations, but seemingly not angry enough to take any action against those at the centre of the scandal. The policeman who was accused of being one of those who allegedly placed a bet on the date of the general election based on privileged insider information has been suspended from duty, but both the two Conservative candidates who have been named in connection with the betting scandal remain Tory candidates with the full backing of the party.

READ MORE: John Swinney gets applause from Question Time audience with indyref2 argument

Just as with the partygate scandal it's one rule for the Tories and another for everyone else. The story is highly damaging because it confirms the lesson from the VIP lane for lucrative PPE contracts during the pandemic – that the Tories leverage insider contacts for personal profit.

Sunak told the audience that he'd be willing to take the UK out of the ECHR only to be challenged by a Scots guy who pointed out that the only two European countries which are not members of the ECHR are Russia and Belarus.

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There were boos and cries of "Shame!" which continued over the closing credits. Sunak looked nonplussed; he was not expecting this reaction from a Question Time audience. We were left with the abiding image of a lost man, totally out of his depth, angrily blaming everyone else for his own failures and short comings.

It has long been said that Sunak does not know how to do politics, a job which demands a level of emotional intelligence that he patently lacks, last night's abject performance confirmed without any doubt that Sunak is hopelessly unsuited for the job as prime minister.

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In my 60 odd years on this earth, I've never seen a political party implode so comprehensively during an election campaign. The same evening that the debate was broadcast, an opinion poll predicted that the Tories are on level pegging with Nigel Farage's vanity party Reform UK, and could be left with just 53 seats. Even Sunak's own seat is no longer safe.

To make matters even worse for the Tories, the field work for that poll was carried out before the betting scandal story broke. There are rumours that more Conservative officials and candidates could be implicated in the scandal over the coming days. It's not going to get better for Sunak.

Debate on the damage of Brexit was shut down

First Minister John Swinney, appearing in his capacity as leader of the SNP, fared considerably better despite many interruptions from Fiona Bruce, who thought her questions were much more interesting than those of the audience. The BBC host appeared very keen to shut down any discussion of Brexit and the damage it has done and continues to do to the economy.

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An audience member asked the First Minister what the SNP would do to grow manufacturing industries specifically.

Swinney replied: "First of all, I would argue for us to rejoin the European Union because that I think is the source of the problems in the manufacturing sector."

READ MORE: Fiona Bruce slated for 'blatant attempt' to shut down John Swinney on Brexit

He was applauded by the audience but Bruce immediately interrupted to say: "But given you have to get through a lot of hoops to get there […] I think you want something slightly shorter-term?"

The First Minister then said: "My point is, there’s a couple of big issues in this campaign that aren't seeing the light of day and one of them is the disastrous impact of Brexit on the UK economy."

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Bruce interrupted yet again to say: "And you are of course free to offer that opinion but that is not the question being asked."

Political commentator Adam Schwarz said on Twitter: "A shameless and blatant attempt by Fiona Bruce to shut down discussion on Brexit's industrial impact. John Swinney is absolutely right that Brexit is having the single greatest detrimental effect on UK manufacturing and it's failing to be addressed in election discourse."

And that's Westminster's shortcomings in a nutshell. Westminster politics is plagued by short termism; if a problem cannot be fixed within a parliamentary term it doesn't exist. Sometimes there is no quick fix, it will take many years to undo the damage of Brexit and it is highly misleading to pretend otherwise.

It's partly because of this obsession with short-term sticking plasters that the Westminster system and the British media – not least Question Time – is easy prey for populist shysters like Boris Johnson and Farage.