Sir Keir Stammer has returned. When trying to take a swipe at Sunak – “Mr Security” – for CCHQ accidentally publishing the personal details of hundreds of people, he fluffed up his lines: “He must be the only tech bbbro, br, br, rather…” Much to the amusement of the Chamber…
Sunak hit back with an off the cuff jibe referencing the industrial revolution: “If he was around he would have probably called James Watt a ‘steam bro'”. Steamy…
Starmer opened PMQs with a jibe at Sunak over government ministers’ actions against rainbow-coloured lanyards. Another story Guido was happy to kick off…
Sunak was quick with a riposte:
“Civil Service impartiality is an important principle that we’re right to support but perhaps he could ask his chief of staff about that…“
Cue loud jeers from Tory MPs as Sunak returned to his defence rhetoric. Sue’s no stranger to a stitch-up…
Fresh off the news that Tory MP Natalie Elphicke defected to Labour, PMQs got off to a testy start. Rishi Sunak hit out at the “virtue signalling lawyer from North London“, to which Starmer fired back with an even more scathing attack: people “know there’s nothing behind the boasts, the gimmicks, the smug smile. He’s a dodgy salesman, desperate to sell them a dud”. Strong words…
It’s no part of the Sketch’s job description to bring about the destruction of the Conservative Party and the personal ruin of its leader – consider it a voluntary extra. No charge.
That’s the good news. And in further good news, the Prime Minister is in even better shape than the King. Whatever fettle means, Sunak’s has never been finer. When Starmer publicly welcomed Labour’s latest MP to his backbenches, a defecting Tory medic, the PM said with a comedian’s ease, “Glad to actually see him” with an inaudible “for once”.
He got a louder shout of backbench laughter than Jimmy Carr at the joke’s first outing. “What do you do, sir?” “I’m a plasterer.” “Good of you to turn up.”
How the Tories think they can do any better than their Mighty Mosquito is one of politics’ great comic narratives. He’s across all briefs. He can sting. He can wallop. He can avoid and evade questions as well as any premier in recent memory.
How is he going to pay for the abolition of National Insurance? Keir was told he has no idea how the tax economics works.
Why will he never give a straight answer? For goodness sake, he’s sick and tired of repeating his straight answers.
Is going to fund it by halving the state pension?
“No.”
That straight answer produced a second shutter-rattling shout of laughter.
Will he rule out abolishing the Winter Fuel Allowance?
“We doubled it.”
Tory joy, real or simulated.”No, we aren’t plotting against our leader,” the noise meant. “We love our nimble little pixie!”
And then a re-run of the best parliamentary joke of the decade. Keir leading on pension policy sets up the punchline of Keir’s personal pension plan. “It comes with its own special law,” Sunak began. His backbenches squirmed with pleasure as for a favourite bedtime story. “It was called The Pension Increase Scheme For Keir Starmer.”
It’s a joke that age does not weary. Which is just as well.
LOTO finished on what sounded like a sour note, saying that the PM’s colleagues were queueing up to dump him for their own political survival, that they don’t want to be seen anywhere near him.
It sounded quite rude, in fact.
Notice that Keir didn’t bring up the subject of Rwanda. There was a reason for that.
“We can see the Rwanda deterrent is working,” that noisy Tory with the beard said. “We have deported our first illegal migrant.”
Including the sunk cost, the unfortunate deportee is the single most expensive traveler in the history of civilisation.
However, that desperado Tim Laughton has reported back from northern France saying the deterrent is already working over there. The news from Dublin’s tent city confirms it. “If he carries on like this, he’s going to win the election,” Bill Wiggin claimed.
No one laughed. Perhaps it created a shiver of alarm among his colleagues.
Because this is how the Government destroys its party.
It does so by winning the election. And it does that by achieving a total, unignorable collapse in boat crossings by the weekend.
How?
By sending tomorrow’s landings directly to a reception centre at an RAF base and thence to Rwanda the following day.
This will have the power to stop the boats at once and for all, flip public opinion, cause a surge of interest in the Conservatives, create an environment in which tax cuts will affect voting, followed by a very narrow majority.
And that’s the end of the Conservative Party. This is the election the Tories must lose. Five more years of a Tory government will wipe them out, and cause a catastrophic development in the Sunak family’s domestic arrangements.
Will such a catastrophe happen?
Luckily, on past form, Rishi will not pull of such a daring executive action.
The Sunaks will live happily ever after following their patriarch’s mid-career sabbatical running a country,
And the tree of liberty, in need of that great manure, will be refreshed with the blood of 150 Tory MPs.
