Where’s Rishi? Even when the prime minister isn’t high above the ground in a plane to Japan, as he was last week, or in a helicopter to Southampton, as he was the week before, he still has a strange air of detachment about him. He doesn’t pay much regard to the day-to-day news cycle. He doesn’t even bother seeming too involved in the big rows that blow up in his own government, often appearing more of a commentator who responds later to a big event like a minister resigning, rather than being the great clunking fist who pushes them out.
When talking about net migration figures, he said: “I inherited some numbers,” suggesting someone else was in charge, maybe even some other political party. His response to Dominic Raab quitting was more like a blog reacting to the news, rather than an attempt to seem in control. In fact, he’s sometimes so slow even to offer this kind of comment that, if he were a mere journalist rather than the prime minister, his editor would be phoning him up and asking if copy might be on the way soon.
