Even in a year of largely lacklustre summer movies, you have to accept the reality that Rishi Sunak has scheduled his election against the release of Beverly Hills Cop 4. Coming back again, you say? Same old hapless colleagues? Straight to streaming? Whether the public really craves a fourth consecutive outing for previously beloved franchise The Conservative Government is not altogether unclear: audience tracking suggests the IP is knackered and people want to see this one about as much as they wanted to see the Cats movie. At least in that they were able to VFX out the arseholes.
But look, stay with the PM on this one! And please note, we’re already into the phase of election berserkery in which you can always find a sympathetic party thinker to tell you that, actually, the bad thing you just saw with your own eyes will play so, so well where it matters. “Rishi did not look like someone who is ready to compromise, and I think that’s really good,” judged the Mail’s Sarah Vine of his election announcement. “I thought his vibe was really good.” Mm-hm.
Literally no obvious setback is resistant to this treatment. Word of advice, and sorry if I sound like Lee Twatwater: if you are ever in a position where you’re explaining that, actually, there are election points and respect to be earned from looking sad and droning on while your Gentleminion suit gets trashed by rain: YOU HAVE ALREADY LOST THAT ELECTION. The prime minister looked like a guy who doesn’t even need to leave a note saying there is no money. Rishi Sunak is waterlogged.
Or, as Michael Gove apparently told him in the emergency cabinet meeting earlier that day: “Who dares wins. You dared, and you will win.” Collectors of moments where Michael Gove just says any old deadpan shit for a laugh are going to have a huge cataloguing exercise on their hands in the coming weeks. I myself have a memory palace full of such treasures, which I plan to open to the public on 5 July.
Happily, as well as that emergency cabinet meeting, the surprise election news also forced a huge number of emergency podcasts. I sometimes wonder if political podcasts are to our era what Vietnam movies were to the American late 1970s. A chance to reflect elegiacally, and indeed lucratively, about how sad and pointless it all was. Indeed, the sheer number of frontline politicians who could lose their seats could lead to a flood of future buddypod franchises. Plus a lighthearted perils-of-modern-dating one hosted by the current defence secretary. Working title: On The Sh-Apps.
In terms of what we have immediately lost, though, the government has explained that its asylum removal flights to Rwanda will not take off until after the election. Have they scuttled their own flagship, or is the Rwanda scheme so badly holed it would have sunk anyway? Truly the Bismarck of policies (the ship not the statesman). Likewise for Sunak’s proposed legislation to ban smoking for young people, which – if memory serves – was supposed to be his legacy project, but now seems to have been ditched in order to hold an election the very day his younger daughter’s term ends, presumably permitting a near-immediate getaway should he also pull off the historic twofer of losing his seat.
Forgive the suggestion of election spoilers – despite polling maestro John Curtice placing Labour on a 99% chance of victory, I think we have to pretend that it is at least possible that Sunak could pull off history’s most unlikely political comeback. But at this stage I would settle for Westminster’s snippiest interviewee pulling off even a conversational comeback.
That said, the titchy tetchy does say he wants to have no fewer than six TV debates with the Labour leader – one every week. Rishi Sunak Versus Keir Starmer – arguably the least watchable limited series you could possibly come up with. And I watched She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, so that means something. Starmer’s yours-to-lose position in the polls is allied with both his natural caution and the ancestral psychic pall of pulling on the Labour shirt to play in a general election. So the next few weeks will be like watching a very buttoned-up man try not to have an accident.
As for Nigel Farage, what a surprise to learn that he will be present but not involved in Reform’s election campaign. Farage loves his country, but he loves American TV money more, and the prospect that his orange friend might say one throwaway thing about him on one third-tier stage on one night of the US election campaign is simply too much of a draw for this terminal beta, who – let’s not forget – conceded, then unconceded, then reconceded, then re-unconceded even on the night of the 2016 EU referendum. Many people do actually prefer to forget that, of course, so we’ll doubtless still have to listen to Nigel when he pitches back up after the election to save the Conservative party, or something.
Ultimately, after the past few years, the one thing most of the country can agree on is that the quality of politics and politicians needs to get so much better. Yet for all the already evident stage management of the campaigns, it should be noted that the Conservatives are currently short of 93 prospective candidates, while about 100 Labour ones have yet to be unveiled. All parties are scrambling to fill the gaps. I hate to rain buckets on anyone’s parade, but … is this really the recipe for a return to political calibre?
Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
