If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, the chances are it’s probably a duck. Ever since Rishi Sunak became prime minister, he and his team have been trying to sell him to the country as a different kind of politician. The type of leader who gets things done. Who makes promises and keeps them. Is straightforward with people about the challenges ahead. The Goldman Sachs tech bro who is effortlessly competent. The safest of safe pairs of hands.
Almost as if Rish! is on a mission to stop us thinking for ourselves. Because the longer it goes on, the clearer it becomes he is trying to gaslight us. There’s only so much cognitive dissonance anyone can take. Trying to persuade yourself that someone who is demonstrably a bit hopeless is some kind of new-age statesman eventually becomes an impossibility. You have to accept the evidence of your own eyes.
And the evidence is that Sunak is failing. Not waving but drowning. He knows that. His MPs know that. Most have already given up on the next election and are busy trying to secure alternative employment. Life as an opposition backbencher isn’t that attractive. Crucially, almost all voters know the game is up. That Sunak will be little more than a footnote in the UK’s political history. An unhappy interregnum between the chaos of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss’s regimes and a new Labour government.
Even by his own piss-poor benchmarks, Rish! is beyond help. Inflation remains high, interest rates are going up, hospital waiting lists are not falling, government debt is increasing, the cost of living crisis shows no sign of ending … You get the picture. Just about everything that could go wrong is going wrong. And nothing Sunak is doing is making any noticeable difference. More and more he looks like some latter day Canute trying to turn back the tide.
Faced with all this, Rish! could have been forgiven for running for the hills. Instead he ran – no helicopter this time – to Dartford in Kent. In the background we had the Ikea warehouse. In the foreground we had an impossible-to-assemble piece of talking flat-pack furniture. Sunak himself. It’s hard to convey how uncomfortable and awkward he seems when faced with real people. Members of the public. He normally sees them only as numbers. Objects to be moved around a spreadsheet. Best kept at a distance.
Weirdly, No 10 seem to think that these PM Connect events – AKA PM Disconnect – showcase the prime minister at his best. That he genuinely engages with people, rather than shows up how out of touch he is. Which goes to show that there must be people in Downing Street who are desperate to see the end of Sunak. Whether they are Labour supporters or just keen to put him out of his misery is anyone’s guess.
Sunak bounced around uneasily. Trying to do his man of the people impression. After an attempted meatball gag that drew no laughs, he got into his rhythm. “Hi guys,” he said. “You might have one or two concerns about inflation.” No shit. Most people’s mortgages had just gone up substantially. “But don’t be. Because I’m 100% on it. We’re going to get through this.” Oh really. You and your many millions and the rest of us with bills we can’t all pay.
On and on, he went. Sounding more and more like a dodgy boyfriend. Desperate to reassure that everything was going to be OK, even though everything about his body language suggested otherwise. Not someone to be trusted even to book a restaurant for dinner. Oh, I just thought we’d do Burger King tonight. Thanks for nothing, Rish! “But hey. Just chill out and feel the vibes. Those inflation blues will soon be over.”
It was like this. He had said he had a plan to halve inflation. Only it wasn’t really a plan. More like hope that the Bank of England could deal with inflation by increasing interest rates to tip us into recession. And who didn’t love a recession? And if that worked then he would take the credit for it. If it didn’t then he would blame the Bank. Brilliant.
“Why do I feel confident?” he asked. God knows. Because he is delusional? Or maybe because his sense of entitlement is so ingrained that he has never yet been disappointed in life. Just wait a little longer, Rish!. But there was also a cunning second part to his plan to let the Bank do everything. And that was for him to do nothing. Not spend anything on public sector pay or hospitals because that would stop inflation. Never mind that everyone would be getting more and more broke. Just remember, he was the man. And we were all in this together.
Sunak ran through his five priorities like some superannuated 1980s Amstrad AI before wrapping up with more of his greatest hits. “We’re on this. We are good together, aren’t we? We are going to get through this.” Moments before saying he was actually going to dump us. It wasn’t us, it was him. Commitment problems. It was intended to reassure. It had the opposite effect. Panic. Bye bye the economy.
For a brief period during the Q&A, Rish! was in his Goldman Sachs mode as Ikea workers asked him about leadership values and the importance of strategy and logistics in the furniture business. Sunak was happy to bullshit with the best. He, too, thought that being a good communicator and honest were important. Which was odd as he is neither. His words merely fill space as aural valium.
And honesty … well, not so much. He was still unable to say whether he would have voted to endorse the privileges committee report had he not organised countless subsequent engagements. No one believes or trusts him on this. Everyone knows his integrity is shot. Sooner or later he will have to call Johnson out. The longer he leaves it, the worse he looks. For a politician, Sunak isn’t even very good at politics.
“I’m 100% on it. We’re going to get through this,” he said as he made for the exits. Of course we are. “I’ve never pretended this was going to be easy.” Er, yes you have. That’s precisely what you did. And why you chose to halve inflation as your main priority. Only, now it’s all gone wrong. And even if inflation does fall, we’ll all still be broke. Happy Brexit anniversary on Friday, everyone.
