Jonathan Reynolds, the Shadow Business Secretary, had a great line this week. It was on the Daily Politics and I’d taped it to watch late at night. I’m paraphrasing slightly but the gist was: “If you have a look around at things after 13 years of the Tories, has anything got better?”
I’d never really thought of it in those terms. But he’s right.
The NHS, the economy, the trains, the buses, housing, the environment, energy bills, the criminal justice system – even cereal boxes are getting smaller. Mr Reynolds, you name it, it’s not very good.
And with all those terrible things going on – and that list is merely the tip of the iceberg – Rishi Sunak chose to berate the entire country for not being good at maths. Really bizarre bit of the week.
I’m not good at maths. I tried, but I couldn’t do it. Not many people I know are. The odd economist, Treasury people – but beyond that no one, really. And people seem to get by. I don’t know what Mr Sunak’s plans are for keeping people doing maths until they’re 18 but unless it’s of practical use I don’t see the point.
The practical uses are the important bit. My friend Jolene, for example, could not tell you what a quadratic equation is but can mentally calculate an afternoon’s bar tab to the penny. Which is, by any measure, a vital skill. Anyways, there is only one equation that matters this week: 24 civil servants and one independent report and we are -1 Deputy PM.
There was one moment on Thursday afternoon – after Mr Sunak received the report and Mr Raab “came out swinging” (unfortunate choice of words – but not mine) – when there was a slim possibility he could stay. “He can’t, can he?” a Labour staffer texted me. No. A couple of complaints and you could blame it on some sort of personality clash.
Still not right but Mr Raab could have ridden it out. Twenty-four is pretty much a good chunk of the civil service and although many were not upheld, Mr Raab – quite rightly – was on his way.
Even his resignation letter was graceless. No apology, just a bizarre rant about how him leaving is no good for government. It will roll on, I guess, and we’ll see him again in some form or another. Mr Raab is already 4/1 to go into the Jungle, 33/1 for Strictly. Can’t see it.
“The thing is,” a pal of mine said, “Aside from all this stuff, he just wasn’t very good.” No. He wasn’t.
And he is unpleasant. As the report shows, he could change his ways but it was too little, too late.
Unpleasant. The sort of man who lays on a beach while Kabul falls. The sort of man, and I am speculating here, who would bring a katsu curry on to an easyJet flight.
The very worst.
