A populist who is not popular, trying to do unpopular things - How Rishi Sunak finally lost his marbles in more way than one this week

Prime Minister's Questions was, I thought, spectacularly brutal for Rishi Sunak this week. 

Focus was shifted mostly to an international dispute between the UK and Greece over the historic and disputed Elgin/Parthenon Marbles. 

Sunak went all-in on the nationalist,  ‘protect our statues’ rhetoric creating a major diplomatic row with Greece in the process, as though it was 2020 all over again, the Proms were set to ban ‘Land of Hope and Glory’, and the Estrella-fueled blackshirts were preparing to rise up in support of their exalted leader; ready at his command to storm the British Museum to glue themselves to the contentious rocks providing they don’t decide to urinate on them or throw them at the Metropolitan police first. 

Except - 

That didn’t happen, and Britain, amid a cost of living crisis, was mostly unimpressed. 

As it turns out, Rishi Sunak can't even ‘do’ populism right.