Rishi Sunak has been playing the long game. Keeping his head down – there can be an upside to one of your close family getting Covid – and offering the bare minimum of support to the prime minister to appear loyal. Just hoping it was only a matter of time before the Met got round to fingering The Suspect’s collar and the necessary 54 no confidence letters were submitted to the chair of the 1922 Committee.
Then and only then would he show his hand. It was with the greatest sadness and the utmost humility etc, etc that he was putting his name forward to become the new leader of the Tory party.
But on Thursday the chancellor was forced out of hiding to come to the Commons to give a statement on energy prices and the cost of living. It could have been a moment of some danger. An admission that people were getting worse off on his watch.
Only he just about managed to ignore all that. Rather he made it all about his own brilliance. Just imagine how much worse everything would be if it hadn’t been for him! Dishi Rishi is turning out to be almost as much the narcissist as Big Dog. Even if his narcissism is more manicured and curated. Either way, he should have no trouble settling down in No 10.
Sunak’s whole speech was a catalogue of reasons to be profoundly grateful for his existence. He claimed the UK was the fastest growing economy and there were more people in work than before the pandemic, before insisting that inflation running at 6% had nothing to do with him. Er … you’re the chancellor. He then went to say the energy price cap would be going up by £693 and that he would be offsetting that with a £200 loan, to be repaid over five years, and a £150 council tax rebate.
The shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, pointed out some obvious flaws with this. There was no guarantee energy prices wouldn’t continue to rise and, even if they didn’t, millions of people were going to be cold, hungry and broke. So how about cutting VAT, extending the warm homes discount and imposing a windfall tax on energy companies?
It would be wrong to cut VAT, said Sunak, sounding most put out, as that would not target the poorest households. A bizarre line as he had moments earlier suggested cutting VAT was one of the great Brexit dividends. Presumably, another one that we will never see. As for the energy companies, they would be bankrupted by further taxes. After all, Shell had only quadrupled its profits to £14bn that very day. They were nearly on the breadline. Would no one think of the shareholders?
This wasn’t the sharpest of defences but it was the best that Rishi could offer. Getting out alive and with his vanity more or less unpunctured was about as much as could be hoped for. Deep down, he knew someone would have to be back with a better bailout package before long. But hopefully, he would no longer be chancellor by that time. Besides which, he had a more immediate hazard to deal with: an interview with the BBC.
Sunak had hoped he would be able to keep the conversation on the subject of his own fabulousness. Laura Kuenssberg wanted to talk parties. No, he’d never once looked out of the window of No 11. He’d had them all blacked out so he could focus on his work. Therefore he couldn’t have seen anything. And he’d certainly never seen any cake. Or been near a cake. Or knew what a cake was. It would be up to Sue Gray to tell him if he’d ever seen any wrongdoing.
And of course The Suspect had never lied to him. Big Dog had prefaced every conversation with, “You know I’m lying to you …” so he must have been telling the truth. He was the prime minister! And prime ministers never lie. Even one whose main contribution to public life has been to make almost everyone disbelieve everything he said.
Then Sunak turned coy. Of course it was impossible to believe that Johnson could have done anything wrong, he simpered. But if he had, then he was terribly flattered some MPs were considering him as a future leader. Not that he knew why! Though it could have been something to do with the dinners he had been hosting and the promises he had made. Just a thought.
Still. Even though the chancellor’s interview hadn’t gone entirely to plan, he was much cheered by the fact that it wasn’t as much of a car wreck as Johnson’s. Big Dog had been up in Blackpool, trying to convince locals he was committed to the levelling-up agenda and that money previously promised could count as new providing it hadn’t already been spent. Brilliant. Then things fell apart.
First he trashed the Northern Ireland protocol that he himself had negotiated as completely useless. Way to go, Boris. Then he tried to backtrack on his Jimmy Savile slur against Keir Starmer. Despite letting several of his more abject cabinet ministers defend him for it. What he had really meant to say was that he identified with the Labour leader. Like him, he had been trying to take responsibility for others’ wrongdoings.
It was yet another lie of course. He breathes, he lies. The Suspect’s whole strategy over partygate has been the exact opposite of Starmer’s. His sole aim being to let others take the blame for him. And even when he tries to feign empathy – impossible for a shameless sociopath – he can’t even manage to mouth an insincere apology. He is the man that has never been able to say sorry.
Under the circumstances, it wasn’t nearly enough. But it was way too much for Munira Mirza, his policy adviser of 10 years. She resigned. Big Dog had finally crossed a line. She couldn’t carry on giving him the benefit of the doubt when there was no doubt. Sunak couldn’t believe his luck. Was this the beginning of the end?
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