The last time most of us saw Rishi Sunak was on Friday lunchtime. He was surrounded by armoured vehicles. His private security detail to protect him from angry Conservative MPs. Appearing in his own BBC hostage video, he declared that it was far too soon to draw any conclusions about the local elections as not all of the results were in.
Nothing escapes our Rish!. For once he was right. The later results were even worse for the government than the earlier ones. Culminating in the loss of the West Midlands mayoralty. One of the Tories’ home bankers. Andy Street couldn’t win in Birmingham even without any mention of Sunak or the Conservatives on his campaign literature. The brand is that toxic.
“Our plan is working,” said Rish!, the desperation creeping into his voice. What plan would that be? There’s no evidence of any strategic thinking in No 10 – why would there be when you’re scraping the barrel with party chairman Richard Holden central to the election campaign programme? Just a government dying on its feet, gasping for one last breath as it ricochets from crisis to crisis. Flotsam in a shit storm of its own making. The only plan that is conceivably working is the one to lose the next election. Now you’re talking.
All that’s left is invention. A reason not to give up. So Sunak insisted that the election results still left all to play for. That a hung parliament was the most likely result in a general election. It felt like a condemned man bargaining with a God in whom he did not really believe.
Certainly none of his backbenchers were fooled. They could understand the polls, even if Rish! couldn’t. The only reason Sunak was still in a job was because it was too late in the day to get another leader. The Tories were doomed either way. Rish! has never inspired love. Too detached from the real world. Too pleased with himself. Now he can’t even inspire competence. Even Failing Grayling could do a better job. The only thing left is to await the inevitable. Not so much riding into the Valley of Death as the Valley of Death riding into them.
Sunak hunkered down in No 10 over the weekend. The Saturday and Sunday papers were cancelled to prevent him accidentally seeing any bad news. For a long time he couldn’t even face getting out of bed. His wife tried piping in the motivational speeches of Ayn Rand, but even her brand of rightwing triumphalism couldn’t prevail. Poor Rish! couldn’t even be bothered to order himself a new pair of trainers.
Come Tuesday, his minders were getting worried. This couldn’t go on. The Tories had to at least look as though they were doing something. That they hadn’t completely given up. Obviously almost anything they said would be bollocks, but at least it would be their bollocks. If there’s one thing worse than bollocks in the political sphere it’s silence. Sunak had to be made to move. To do something. To put in another futile performance. One foot in front of the other. But no. Nothing.
Instead, it was Labour who once more set the agenda. It frequently is these days. The government can do little more than react to the latest disaster. On Tuesday morning it couldn’t even do that. So Rachel Reeves took the opportunity to stick the boot in during a speech in central London. To lay bare the real legacy of successive Tory governments.
Reeves is never going to be the most exciting speaker. Then not many politicians are. But she’s got one thing going for her that none of the Treasury team possess. An aura of competence. She looks and sounds the part. Jeremy Hunt has only to open his mouth and he sends the country and the markets into a tailspin.
It’s hard to think of a man so obviously out of his depth since … since the last Tory chancellor. From Kamikwasi to Jezza. No wonder the whole country feels broke. Because it is. At least with Rachel you feel like you can stop worrying and start trying to enjoy your life. With Jezza you can’t do that. Because you know you have to pay attention because you can’t be sure that he is.
Rachel got straight to the point. Don’t listen to what the government has to say. About having reduced inflation through no action of its own. From having lurched from a “technical recession” (TM J Hunt) to a “technical recovery” (TM R Reeves). The excitement of 0.1% growth. Interest rates still punishingly high since the Liz Truss experiment. Listen instead to your heart. Do you feel so much better off? Can you handle the excitement of being more broke just a little more slowly?
Not that Labour was offering instant salvation. The country was in too much of a mess for that. But what she could promise was some much needed stability. Things would not be getting worse. She wouldn’t be making £46bn of unfunded tax cuts. Rachel didn’t make her “securonomics” sound very exciting. But maybe we’ve all had enough of exciting. Give it 10 years and we might turn this around. We are where we are.
Reeves was back in action at Treasury questions going head to head with Jezza. It’s one of the more unequal contests in the Commons. Jezza couldn’t even win an argument with his reflection. Rachel pointed out that to get rid of national insurance he would have to increase income tax by 8 percentage points. The chancellor smugly said that wasn’t his plan. Largely because he had no plan. He has no idea where he is going to find his £46bn. No need. He won’t be in government to need to. Come to think of it, he might not even be an MP.
“Everything is going brilliantly,” said Jezza. We have never had it so good. Apart from five years ago. For the first time ever, people will be worse off at the end of the parliament than they were at the start. We are cutting taxes by putting them up. We have abolished low pay. Can’t wait to see Jezza working a zero-hours contract on the minimum wage after he’s lost his seat. The world’s worst Deliveroo rider. Can barely locate his own home.
There was some good news. Ish. Sunak had risen from his bed to explain the latest government fuck up. The news that the payroll company contracted to the Ministry of Defence had had its systems hacked. Yet another cost saving gone wrong. Next time someone might remember to renew the licence on the Norton anti-virus. Let that sink in: the MoD can’t even defend its own personnel. Yet we trust it to defend the country.
