The pace picked up in week three with most of the main parties launching their election manifestos. First up on Monday were the Lib Dems, as Ed Davey took time off from his theme park adventures for the morning to take centre stage in a rather glitzy office space in north London.
Next up were the Tories who, for reasons best known to themselves, had decamped to an anonymous hall in the middle of Silverstone. No one even got near a car. Cue endless gags about driving round and round in circles, going nowhere. The cabinet looked less than thrilled to have been dragged away from trying to defend their seats for the day to act as a support act for a prime minister in whom they have lost confidence.
The Greens were endearingly low key, having hired a prefab hut on the boundary of Sussex county cricket club in Hove. We arrived to find the co-leaders, Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay, practising on the Autocue.
Last to launch this week was Labour, which is finding it hard not to act as if it has already won this election. Its candidates were all smiles as they gathered in the Co-op headquarters in Manchester. Even the most sceptical media outlets are now treating them as the government in waiting.
Catering of the week
The Lib Dems won this at a canter. At their manifesto launch, not only did they lay on croissants and pastries for the hungry hacks but they also had a number of bespoke coffee machines where you could make yourself an espresso or a macchiato. Things don’t get much more refined than that. Labour made a bit of an effort with some tired-looking pastries and some biscuits but the coffee could not compete.
The Greens offered nothing. Not even a glass of water. Maybe they couldn’t be sure it wasn’t contaminated. The Conservatives went the extra mile to make sure no one had a good time. The caterers told the press that they had offered to lay on some food but had been told by CCHQ not to bother. There was one jug that had coffee written on the outside, but on inspection it turned out to only contain hot water.
Deprivation of the week
Who could not shed a tear for Rishi Sunak? Asked by ITV’s Paul Brand what he had had to go without as a child, the best that Rish! could come up with was that his parents never had a Sky dish. He should have tried being a kid in the 1960s like me. Back then there were only three channels and all of them were in black and white. At least, they were on my parents’ TV. I still haven’t quite recovered from the emotional damage. The good news for Sunak is that the Sky News channel is now free to air, though that might not actually be such a bonus. He might want to avoid watching a replay of his performance on the Sky TV debates. Car-crash viewing.
Search of the week
Has anyone seen Jeremy Hunt? You’d have thought the chancellor would have made at least a token appearance in an election campaign. After all, the economy is front and centre of any government’s pitch to be re-elected. Rachel Reeves has made countless media appearances. But Jezza has been kept in mothballs by the Tories, not allowed out once. Not even for the press conference to try to pick holes in Labour’s manifesto. That has been left to Hunt’s deputy at the Treasury, Laura Trott. Could it be that the Tories have finally realised what many of us have suspected for a long time? That Hunt isn’t actually very good at economics?
Bet of the week
Take a bow Craig Williams, parliamentary private secretary to the prime minister. At a time when no one was seriously considering the possibility of a July election, Craig happened to wake up three days before Rishi Sunak went out into the driving rain in Downing Street, blessed with a vision of the future. No insider knowledge, just a gift from God. Though you would have thought he might have got better odds than 5/1. There again, maybe our Craig didn’t want to look greedy.
Still, this may be just about the only thing that a Tory MP seems to have got right about the election. However, suspicious minds at the Gambling Commission are now having their doubts that some kind of insider knowledge might not have been involved and Craig is being investigated as a “politically exposed person”. Surely not. Sunak promised us integrity, professionalism and accountability. Things can only get betting.
Hero of the week
No one could ever accuse Mel Stride, the work and pensions secretary, of not going the extra mile for the Tory party. While almost every other Tory minister has taken to not answering their phone to speak to the media about the latest government and campaign disaster, Mel is always happy to take one for the team. This week it felt as if he’d been asked to do the morning broadcast round for three days in a row. A truly magnificent effort, given that Mel is rarely kept in the loop and often doesn’t appear to know what’s going on. But then, who does these days?
Grant Shapps did make a brief appearance to contradict the prime minister’s own announcement on national service. Originally, Sunak had led us to believe that the military component would last a full year; Grant reduced that down to 25 days. Not that it matters as it isn’t going to happen anyway.
Winner of the debates
We’ve already reached a point of debate overload. They now seem to exist purely for the benefit of massaging the broadcasters’ egos and we’ve long since given up expecting to learn anything new about the parties or the politicians. The seven-way debates are a very special kind of Sartrean existential hell where the protagonists merely shout over one another. Sadly there are still plenty more to come, so we will all just have to grin and bear it. Luckily the Euros start today, so we will all have the opportunity to turn over and watch the football instead. That said, Wednesday’s debate on Sky did produce one clear winner. Not Sunak or Keir Starmer but the presenter Beth Rigby. She was forensic in her questioning, not allowing either leader to get away with anything. They will both be glad they don’t have to do that again.
Billy No Mates
Having a meeting of the G7 in Italy midway through the election campaign must have seemed like an easy win for the prime minister. A chance to be photographed with other world leaders and a reminder to everyone back home of his own importance. To set him apart from Starmer. Only it hasn’t really worked out that way. Politicians have no mercy. If they smell weakness, they go to great lengths to keep it at arm’s length for fear of being associated with failure.
So at this summit, none of the other leaders have wanted a bilateral meeting with Sunak. Why bother when you know he’s not going to be around for much longer? Far better to save your breath and talk to Keir directly in a couple of weeks. So poor Rish! has been left to twiddle his thumbs while everyone else gets down to business. But he will always have the photos of the meet and greet at the start.
Copycat of the week
You might have thought that no one could do chaos quite like Rishi Sunak. But on Sunday, Emmanuel Macron said “tenez ma biere” as he announced a snap general election in France after the populist right parties made large gains in the European elections. Say what you like about the French, they know how to enjoy themselves and they keep their election campaigns short and sweet. We Britons could learn something from that. It’s hard to think that we in the UK are going to become any better informed in the last three weeks before 4 July. For Macron, the stakes are not really that personally high. He gets to remain as president till 2027 regardless. It’s his prime minister and MPs who get to pay the price. They may not be feeling that well disposed towards him.
Stunt of the week
I have a feeling that Ed Davey is going to win this every week until the end of the campaign. Ed is now on something of a roll and voters have come to expect him to do something ridiculous every time he announces a new policy. Straight after the Lib Dem launch on Monday he was off to Thorpe Park to ride a couple of rollercoasters. Since then he’s done a military assault course, fallen into some water (again) and had a fashion makeover on breakfast TV. He really is living his best life. Though whether he will still be smiling when he has to give evidence to the Post Office inquiry in a few months’ time is another matter.
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