It goes without saying that Rishi Sunak would have preferred the Easter recess to go on indefinitely. The more that people see of him these days, the further he drops in the polls. So loitering in Downing Street, online shopping for Adidas trainers or taking the dog for a walk is about as good as it gets for the prime minister these days. At least that ensures the level of public contempt rises at a more or less manageable rate.
But if recess did have to end then the first day back in parliament was pretty much ideal for Rish!. OK, so the escalation of hostilities in the Middle East and the prospect of world war III might be a major concern for the rest of us, but for Sunak it is a blessed relief.
Rish! gets blamed for almost everything these days: small boat crossings, deportation flights to Rwanda, the recession, government debt, the NHS, problems with donors accused of racism.
And to be fair, he’s bang to rights on all of this. His unique reverse Midas touch is to turn everything to shit. He’s yet to find anything domestically he does well. Which is a bit of a problem when you’re meant to be running the country.
But the Middle East is turning out to be his saviour. Because there isn’t anyone – not even the delusional Liz Truss (more of her later) – who thinks Sunak is responsible for the hostilities between Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. So all he has to do is to say something vaguely sensible – the sort of thing any half-sane person could have come up with – and Rish! can bank the win as an ersatz statesman.
It was a predictably smiley Sunak, then, who sauntered into the Commons shortly before 3.30pm on Monday to give a statement on the Iranian attacks on Israel at the weekend and the involvement of the RAF in defending against them. For once, the Commons was a safe place for him. Nothing could possibly go wrong. Not for the next 90 minutes, at any rate. Result.
Having remembered to lose the smile before he began speaking, Rish! did his best to lace his statement with gravitas. Hard for a man who is increasingly cursed with levitas. He’s just no longer a serious politician.
Everyone – even him – knows he’s operating on borrowed time. There’s no longer anything he can do. Not even to mitigate the losses. The election will be his own personal haunting. His departure will go unmourned and the Tory party will show no compassion. His best option is to book his first-class flights to Santa Monica as soon as possible.
“Iran has sought to create more chaos with a reckless and dangerous escalation,” Sunak began. No one was going to argue with that. Even though everyone knew such an escalation had been coming ever since Israel targeted an Iranian consulate in Damascus. It’s how things roll in the Middle East. Then a quick anthem for the RAF planes that had shot down some of the drones.
We want security, he continued. We needed calmer heads to prevail. Hmm. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu aren’t exactly noted for their calm heads. Both prefer taking a step forward rather than a step back.
On to Gaza. Here we needed a two-state solution. Again, good luck with that. Everyone knows that’s the only viable long-term answer. Apart from, tragically, Hamas and Israel.
In reply, Keir Starmer pretty much repeated what Sunak had said, only using fewer words. After all, what else was he going to say? His mission for the year is to appear less mad and more dependable than the Tory party. A low bar, but one that Labour has knocked over in the past.
Starmer’s one point of difference was to remind Israel that maybe it was a piss-poor idea to bomb diplomatic buildings, regardless of how many undesirables may be taking shelter inside. Just a thought.
The rest of the statement followed fairly predictable lines. The SNP also suggested that Israel may have started the escalation, something Iran had turned up to volume 11, but Sunak was having none of it.
There was no moral equivalence, he said. Israel had the right to do what it liked because it was our ally. Not his most convincing line but only George Galloway really objected. But then Honourable George, who has had more political parties than even Lee Anderson, would blame the climate crisis on Israel if he could.
Suella Braverman wanted to proscribe the whole of Iran – in effect breaking off all diplomatic relations with the country. One day she may get the hang of politics. But not any time soon.
Ben Wallace wondered if Israel could come to Ukraine’s aid in fighting Iranian drones. Err … I think Israel might have its hands full. But it could work as a diversionary tactic. Keep them away from Gaza. Matt Hancock got up to say he had nothing to say but wanted to say it anyway as he couldn’t bear to be left out. Cue an exit for the tearooms.
But it wasn’t all good news for Sunak. The morning had begun with David Cameron doing his first media round as foreign secretary. And he was disarmingly plausible. So much so that you could almost think he was the prime minister. It was like entering a weird time loop.
Those of us with a long-term memory recall Lord Big Dave as one of the worst prime ministers. A man whose carelessness and entitlement saw him lose the EU referendum and throw the country into a chaos from which we haven’t recovered. Now we’re that desperate that he almost sounds like the answer to our prayers.
“Oh, I don’t want to become prime minister again,” he said casually. Of course he doesn’t. He’s sorted for life now. “And Rishi is still the sharpest mind around the cabinet table.”
Dave, Dave. Think before you speak. If Rish! is the sharpest mind then how dim does that make the rest of the cabinet? The country is dying on its feet and we’re governed by halfwits.
Then there was the Trusster. Liz was doing what Liz does best. Causing mayhem by telling any rightwing news outlet all kinds of nonsense. She’s really become her own tribute act. A sort of 1950s end-of-the pier light entertainment.
Apart from the lunatic Institute of Economic Affairs, there’s no one left in the country who takes anything she says seriously any more. She’s so delusional, she can’t even accept any responsibility for trashing the economy. Bizarrely, she even talks of her final days in Downing Street. Liz, your very first days were your final days.
Hilariously, Liz even believes she’s in with a chance of becoming prime minister again. I’ve got more chance of becoming leader of the Tory party than she has. How do you get to be this dysfunctional? Liz is a mystery even to herself. But one of Labour’s greatest electoral assets.
