Pull yourself a pint of Night Nurse to wash down news that Conservative rebels who are plotting to bin off Rishi Sunak after the local elections apparently plan a 100-day “policy blitz” to turn things around. Hard to judge which would be welcomed least by the embattled British public: this 100-day policy blitz, or simply a 100-day blitz. These malcontents do, after all, hail from the section of the party that fetishises that period of the second world war virtually none of them were even born for, and must surely have at least toyed with the idea of simply bombing the electorate into jolly, rubble-clearing union under their esteemed leadership.
That’s not their only fetish, of course. They are also compulsively obsessed with regicide, and the belief that if they just got themselves one more new leader – just ONE more – then their lives would be perfect. Modern Conservative MPs are like shopaholics, but for leaders. The corridor outside the 1922 Committee room is lined with boxes of unopened luxury picks, while a significant number of their days are spent trying to return costly leaders they’ve already bought. These items were either too big, or too small, or not as described, or as described but they didn’t want to believe it, or simply that final box on the drop-down menu: “not for me”. This time they’ve bought one that’s bad at politics. And look, I’m not saying we’ve all done it. Although, the SNP has done it, as you’ll have noted this week – and indeed, pretty much all of the weeks Humza Yousaf was first minister.
Here we are though, tens of thousands of seconds into yet another most-testing-week-of-his-premiership for Sunak, who faces local elections on Thursday with predictions for how the Conservatives are going to fare ranging from “very badly” to “Jesus Christ – did you see that?!” The once-and-future Californian faces reckonings in various town and city halls and mayoralties around the country, and anything less than electoral carnage will be talked up as the green shoots of something or other. Hemlock, possibly, or deadly nightshade.
Polling shows it is simply too close to call on the talismanic mayoralties of Teesside and the West Midlands, where Conservative holds would surely be trumpeted by Downing Street. Then again, most of the mayoral candidates have distanced themselves so completely from the Conservative party and Sunak in their election leaflets that it would be surely be a contortion too far for the prime minister to claim he had the slightest thing to do with it should any of them pull off a narrow win.
Losses, of course, would very much be chalked up to him, making the possibility of a leadership contest – that Sunak would win – certainly something that could darken your skies. Some rebels, naturally, believe that Sunak could be forced out in ways they aren’t entirely clear about. But the words “caretaker leader” are being bandied about by that wing of the Tory party always keen to get a sequel to The Shining off the ground.
As for who will be getting the keys to Westminster’s Overlook hotel … How about Robert Jenrick? Robert was once nicknamed Robert Generic by uninspired colleagues, but his recent close-cropping of his hair suggests he would now much prefer they see him as perfect for any immigration row calling for a Channing Tatum type. Next up – and stop me if you’ve heard this one before – there are amusing indications that rebels are once again trying to make Penny Mordaunt happen. Certainly, the Commons leader has been on manoeuvres for some time, assiduously courting local constituency associations up and down the country, and “clarifying” historic comments that were perfectly clear the first time round but now apparently mean something different.
Honestly, I find it somewhat watchable. At some level you have to simply respect the trick of Penny Mordaunt – an unbelievable lightweight disguised as some kind of serious figure who is now regularly linked with the top job because she silently held a thing still for an hour at the coronation. Genuinely this is the sort of competition they run in suburban shopping malls around the world, and one that would typically win you a month’s supply of contaminated protein powder, not the chance to be prime minister of a country that is somehow still the world’s sixth-largest economy. But our evident keenness to slip further down the top 10 cannot be disputed. Live by the ceremonial sword, die by the ceremonial sword.
Quite why some of the Tories have coalesced round Mordaunt is anyone’s guess. I suppose she would at least feel like the next term in an ongoing sequence where we appoint the Conservative leadership candidate who came closest to the one they accidentally ended up appointing prime minister. Rishi Sunak lost to Liz Truss, then got the job when she went to the great salad crisper drawer in the sky. Mordaunt in effect lost out to Sunak, but could make the podium now he’s been found wanting in turn. Our path to the highest office in the land could start to resemble one of those Olympic events where all the medal winners are eventually found to be drug cheats, and someone who came sixth gets their default gold two years later in a doorstep ceremony performed by a DHL driver. This, but for prime ministers. Would there be time for Mordaunt to give way to Jenrick before any general election? Something for us all to ponder if summer – or indeed spring – ever comes.
Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
