Made it. Rishi Sunak sighed deeply as he looked out the window of his Downing Street office. It had been a tough nine months. He’d hoped he could have made a difference but almost everything had gone wrong. Who would have imagined he was on course to miss every one of his five promises? Pledges. Priorities. Vague aspirations. Whatever they were now called.
And even if he met one of them, would anyone care? Suppose inflation did come down to 5.35% by the end of the year. It wouldn’t be through anything he had done and people would still be completely broke. Prices still unaffordable to many. Just becoming more unaffordable a little more slowly. Even he could see that was a niche sell.
Then there were the small boats. It was probably just as well the court of appeal had ruled the Rwanda policy illegal. Otherwise everyone would realise it had only been a gimmick. Deporting 200 refugees wasn’t going to deal with the asylum backlog. And don’t mention the hospital waiting lists. He couldn’t go on blaming the striking doctors for ever. Sooner or later people would realise it also had something to do with chronic underfunding of the NHS.
But hey, he was nearly through to the summer recess. Six weeks when the pressure would be off a bit. He might even forget his unpopularity in the opinion polls and get to use the pool. Which reminded him. He needed to put the helicopter on standby for the weekend.
Just three byelections to get through. He’d best try to prepare some excuses. Somerton and Frome. Wherever that was. He’d never been there. Never would. That was probably a goner. He might get lucky in Uxbridge and Selby. Fingers crossed. Though what could he say if he did. That he’d managed to hold a seat that had never voted Labour. Or had successfully defended a 20,000 majority. Hardly a good news story. And if he lost all three then the knives would be out. All the shits in the party would come after him. Well, let them try. See if they could do any better. It wasn’t easy leading a government that was on its knees.
That just left the reshuffle. What to do? What would make him look strong? Someone who knew what he wanted. Had a plan. As opposed to just being desperate. He couldn’t do nothing, as Ben Wallace had already indicated he would be stepping down as defence secretary. That man had the luck of the devil. Always at the top of the Tory popularity ratings. No one seemed to mind that he’d cut the armed forces to a record low. Or that we’d depleted all our weapons stocks. We couldn’t even fight a war if we wanted to.
Best to make some notes. Remind himself of who’s who. Starting with Jeremy Hunt. He’d inherited the chancellor from the dog days of Liz Truss. The man brought in to reassure the markets after Kwasi Kwarteng had trashed the economy. That was a joke. The very idea that Jezza was a safe pair of hands. He was a nice enough bloke. A touch of the labrador puppy. More or less loyal and affectionate.
But totally useless at economics. On his first day in the job he’d had to order Quantitative Easing for Dummies from Amazon. Just look at him. Every time he’s asked to do something in the Commons, he’s a sweaty, nervous wreck. Terrified he’s going to be found out. His only plan for dealing with inflation was to do nothing and hope the Bank of England got it right on interest rates. Hell, a prime minister could almost do without a chancellor at this rate.
Then there was James Cleverly. Fairly harmless if largely ineffective. The thing about the foreign secretary was that he had become addicted to air travel. It was now hard to get hold of the government plane. Jimmy Dimly couldn’t resist the business class lifestyle and was at his best having pointless meetings with foreign ministers around the world at which everyone agreed to carry on being nice to one another. No wonder on his last junket to the US he’d begged to be allowed to keep his job. Also, how do you replace a foreign secretary who is never in the country?
As for Suella … Everyone knew she was useless. She only got the home secretary job as he’d had to keep some of the more rightwing lunatics happy. But the refugees kept coming and she hadn’t deported a single one. Plus the Met was still out of control. Crime was on the up. Added to this, she was genuinely stupid. So what was the point of her?
What about the rest of the cabinet? He’d definitely keep Oliver Dowden. Having someone genuinely hopeless as your deputy was a clear win. Michael Gove was more or less OK. Everyone seemed to think he was competent but no one knew why. He had even had to hand back £1.9bn to the Treasury because he couldn’t be bothered to find anything to spend it on. These days he spent more time in his crack den on the roof than in his office. He was becoming more semi-detached by the day. He seemed to have fallen out of love with himself as well as politics.
Gillian Keegan? He couldn’t think of anything she had done. Other than promise to cut crap university courses. She could have started with PPE (politics, philosophy and economics). That course had wiped billions off the UK’s GDP in recent years. Kemi Badenoch? She was just rude and arrogant. Thérèse Coffey? Grumpy and lazy. Managed to fall out with the farmers while leaving the country swimming in shit. Everyone would have been better off without her.
Rishi paused and leaned back in his chair. He realised he was struggling to remember the rest of his cabinet. They were that anonymous. Had achieved that little. Just hanging on. Hoping for a miracle. Just like him. He started to check for their names on Wikipedia. But what was the point? It wasn’t as if there was an abundance of talent on the backbenches. And even if there was, nobody in their right mind would want a cabinet job. You’d have to wait two years to pick up a lucrative job in the private sector. Unless you just ignored the rules.
Maybe he should just have some fun. While he could. Stuff the cabinet with a whole load of idiots. The derelicts. Jacob Rees-Mogg. Mark Francois. Andrea Jenkyns. Lee Anderson. Jonathan Gullis. Brendan Clarke-Smith. Miriam Cates. Just for the lolz. That should do it. La commedia è finita.
Depraved New World by John Crace (Guardian Faber, £16.99). To support The Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
