Great. Just what we needed. The country is falling apart. Nothing appears to be working as it should. But Rishi Sunak has the answer. He can channel our desires. And what we apparently need is a party political broadcast. Words of comfort and hope from our Glorious Leader. Who knew it would be that simple to set our minds at ease? So, late on Wednesday, Rish! took to the airwaves to share his insight.
The broadcast opened with Sunak in a darkened room, surrounded by two union jacks. Things must be bad when a man with £720m in his joint bank account can’t afford to turn on the lights. Rish! peered at the camera, his face the model of concern.
His priorities were our priorities, he began. I doubt that. His main priority is to try to get himself re-elected as prime minister in less than two years. Or failing that, to manage his party’s decline so that the Tories don’t suffer a landslide defeat. The priority for the rest of us is to find some way of staying alive. And we’d quite like our country back.
“I know it’s been tough,” said Rish!, doing his best empathy face. Awkward. But he’d been brought in three months ago to fix things. Except, he hadn’t of course. He’d been brought in to fix the Tory party that was locked into a death spiral. And even then, only because no one could think of anyone better. But now he wanted to give a “full update” on his progress since he had been in office. Or as full an update as it was possible to give in three minutes and 40 seconds.
First, Sunak wanted to talk about the economy. At which point we switched to an image of an unnamed seaside town. God knows why. Like many countries, he said, the UK had had a rough ride. But he alone had the courage to impose an energy price cap. Which will come as news to Labour who first proposed the idea.
As far as anyone else could recall, Rish! had never been that keen on the idea initially. He then went on to say he had taken the difficult decision to get debt and borrowing under control. While somehow forgetting to mention that it had been the Tories – remember Liz Truss – under whom the economy had tanked for the past 13 years. Sunak hurriedly mumbled something about inflation before moving on. How anyone was expected to deal with rising interest rates and food bills was left unsaid. Just know that the prime minister really cares.
Next up was the health service. Cue a photo of a doctor standing in the street. “My father was a doctor,” he said, now for some reason staring at us from another angle. So he would not let us down. Someone should maybe ask his father whether NHS doctors feel let down by what successive Tory governments have done. Clearly Sunak can’t be all that proud or he wouldn’t go private.
“We’re giving the NHS record resources,” Sunak said. “More doctors, more nurses.” Wow. And still there are 136,000 vacancies in the NHS. Presumably all those people refusing to take jobs because they think they will be too well paid. Cognitive dissonance or something. And still no sign of any of the promised brand new hospitals. A mystery.
But still our beating hearts … Rish! had more. So much more. Remember that pledge he had made to lower hospital waiting lists just a few weeks ago? Well, he had delivered. The waiting list was down by three. A British success story born in Downing Street. Destined to be on every Tory election pamphlet coming through your door in the coming months. Sure to be a huge comfort to all the other 7.2 million people on waiting lists. And thank heaven that A&E departments are at crisis point and that ambulance waiting times for heart attacks and strokes are now at record levels of up to 90 minutes. Bring on the good news.
There was just time for Sunak to mention illegal migration before it was time to wind up. Now Rish! somehow managed to talk without opening his mouth. He may be a crap prime minister but he’s an excellent ventriloquist. He would be putting our needs before his party’s needs and would restore pride in the UK. I rather suspect people will be looking elsewhere for that validation. And … cut. That’s a wrap. Over and out.
Weirdly there wasn’t a single mention of strikes. The one thing on everyone’s mind. Guess it must have slipped his. There again, what could Sunak possibly have said? That even his own advisers thought his anti-strike legislation was moronic? That he, Jeremy Hunt, Steve Barclay, Mark Harper and the rest of the cabinet had no idea what to do.
That they had hoped playing tough would have gone down well with traditional Tory voters and they’ve been wrongfooted that most voters have taken the side of those going on strike. That people are fed up with the Conservatives trying to pretend they haven’t been in power for 13 years and are all in favour of workers trying to be a little less broke by asking for a pay rise that approximates to inflation.
It’s not just the country that’s upset. It’s Tory MPs as well. There was a time when Jacob Rees-Mogg used to be a regular fixture in the Commons. Now he’s an infrequent visitor, preferring to spend his time plotting in dark corners. On Thursday, he appeared briefly to give an interview to GB News. First he claimed that Boris Johnson had been brainwashed by the wokerati into wearing a mask during lockdown. Next time Jakey has surgery he will no doubt insist the theatre staff breathe germs all over him.
Then there was another conspiracy. This time to persuade us that it was too difficult to ditch 4,000 pieces of EU law in a year. All a plot to stop us enjoying the Brexit benefits that not even many of his own party believe exist any more. But Mogg is a believer. He will go down with this ship.
He also said the only thing that mattered was there being a Tory government. Though what he meant was a particular type of Tory government. One led by Johnson or Truss with whom he had remained in contact. Remarkably, in JakeyWorld the country has a choice. Between a Tory government who would inflict a death by a thousand cuts. And one that would just burn the country to the ground. Lucky us.
