Combative, energetic, passionate – where has this Rishi been until now?

If the Tories don’t knock a chunk out of Labour’s lead after Rishi Sunak’s terrier-like performance in the BBC debate, it won’t be for lack of trying.

Unlike England’s footballers, Mr Sunak gave it everything he had to expose the Labour leader’s weaknesses on tax, migration and women’s rights.

He also had a new word for voting Labour: surrender.

Do not surrender your family finances to Labour’s plans to tax and spend, he told the audience. Do not surrender our borders to Labour’s feeble immigration policy. Do not surrender your pension to them.

It was simple, and it was effective, though it was almost certainly too late. Where has this combative, energetic, passionate Prime Minister been until now?

The head-to-head format suits Mr Sunak much better than the one-after-the-other examination we have seen before. Rather than spending his time apologising for 14 years of Conservative government, as he has in the past, Mr Sunak had a target to attack, and attack it he did.

“Mark my words,” he said, pointing at Sir Keir Starmer, “your taxes are going up if he is in charge.”

If Labour gets into power, he said, there would be “a retirement tax, capital R capital T” because state pensions would enter the tax threshold.

The message might not have been new, but as any expert on public speaking will tell you, 90 per cent of what an audience hears you say depends on how you say it, rather than the words themselves, and Mr Sunak appeared to be taking the audience with him as he transmitted the danger of a Labour government through the urgency in his voice.

If only Mr Sunak had started the campaign like this, surely he would have chipped away at Labour’s lead and lost fewer voters to Reform: the Conservatives can only hope that his words are ringing in people’s ears as they go to polling stations next week.

“Not everyone agrees with me,” Mr Sunak said, “but at least you know where I stand,” before adding: “I don’t think people should surrender their family finances to the Labour Party.”

Sir Keir was his usual monotone self, absorbing the blows on the assumption that he has already won the fight as long as he is still standing at the end.

On the issue of women-only spaces, Mr Sunak was unequivocal: “Sex means biological sex,” he said, adding that he would protect women-only spaces for biological women rather than people who self-identify as women.

Turning to Sir Keir, he said: “He’s not sure, like I am, that when it comes to these matters sex means biological sex, and that’s how you protect female-only spaces and services.”

Sir Keir used his final comment to say: “Vote change. Vote Labour.”

There was no surprise in what Mr Sunak’s final words to the TV audience were.

“If you are not certain about Labour,” he said, “don’t surrender to them.”