The Curious Incident of the Dog That Didn’t Bark in the Night-time. Exactly a year ago today, Rishi Sunak began the first of his many relaunches with a speech in which he announced his five pledges. Pledges that were downgraded over the course of the next few months first to promises and then to vague aspirations. Pledges that had been chosen not because they were hard, but because they weren’t. Come 2024, he would be able to boast that he wasn’t a complete failure.
Now the election year is upon us and … nada. Normally a prime minister would choose to mark the occasion with a big set-piece speech. A few Tory donors and supporters to make up the numbers and loads of hacks to report every word. A live TV feed to every news network. This month, not so much. It’s almost as if Sunak is ashamed of his record and is trying to slip under the radar. His latest relaunch – the softest of soft relaunches – shrouded in secrecy. A private performance for his own benefit.
Then it’s not as if Rish! has any good news to impart. The only one of his five pledges he has delivered on is to halve inflation. And that was nothing to do with him. Just a fall in global energy prices. So he’s left with four crosses on the scorecard. Even the diehard Tory media, conditioned to see the best in everything Sunak does, isn’t trying to pretend he’s succeeded.
So on Thursday morning, Sunak snuck out of Downing Street with no media in tow to meet a group of bewildered people in a Nottinghamshire youth centre. Rish! tried to inject some positivity into the occasion. Look on the bright side, he said. 2024 was going to be marginally better than 2023. Hooray! Though that wasn’t what many economists were saying. They all thought the economy was going to bump along the bottom with 0% growth. But hey! At least we weren’t heading for another recession. Happy days. We’d all continue to become more broke, just at a slower rate. Things would still be unaffordable. It would just take us a wee bit longer to notice that prices were still rising way too fast.
The best bit of news was that there would definitely be a general election in 2024. Though this wasn’t quite such good news for Rish! as the Tories were currently 17 points behind in the opinion polls. So by this time next year, he would be out of a job, sitting on the beach in Malibu and polishing his CV before his interview with Elon Musk. Still, at least he wouldn’t have to get by on a prime ministerial pittance any more. He could barely afford his Peloton subscription on that.
“My working assumption,” he said, “is we’ll have an election in the second half of the year.” No shit. He made it sound as if he had no idea that the timing of an election was entirely within his gift. Maybe he’s stupider than we thought. Then no one had ever really seriously thought he would call an election in May. That idea had only been touted around by Labour so that Sunak would look weak when he delayed it. Come on, lads. Why would Rish! knowingly give up being prime minister in May when he could hang on for another six months? Why relinquish more freebies and baubles? Not to mention the chance to wreck the country a wee bit more to make life trickier for an incoming Labour government.
Instead it was left to Keir Starmer to do the big set-piece event in front of the TV cameras. To take countless questions from all shades of the media. Not just the True Blue reporters, as Sunak does. You can almost see the axis of power shifting in front of your eyes. The world turning. The country gravitating towards its new, once and future king. The real prime minister.
The speech at the National Composites Centre in Bristol had been billed by many as a further chance for the Labour leader to redefine himself for an apathetic public. To throw off the shackles of the boring facade and reveal the real persona within.
This, though, rather missed the point. Because the thing is, Starmer is a wee bit dull. A wee bit worthy. But that’s precisely his strength. Obviously, him being boring isn’t necessarily a good thing for me. Sketch writers like their politicians to be larger than life, their personality flaws all too obvious.
But the country could do with a prime minister on whom it can depend to do the right thing. So we don’t have to tune into the news five times a day to discover what new clusterfuck has been visited upon us.
So how was the speech? It covered all the bases of public service, of doing the right thing, of restoring trust in politics. It was light in policy detail. No unfunded tax cuts, just a promise to switch on the growth “lever”. Now why hasn’t any previous prime minister thought of doing that? But that’s a quibble.
The point is that it was all easy on the ear. A few reporters insisted they still didn’t know what Labour was for. What it would do. That was either a category error or they just hadn’t been listening. Because Starmer has told us often enough. His five missions. You may not like them. They may not be very exciting. But they are hiding in plain sight.
Starmer isn’t promising a revolution. He’s not that kind of guy. Much of what he is promising is more of the same, only done properly. Done decently. He isn’t a voice of protest. He is a voice of government. And after 14 years of the Tories, that’s a relief.
• John Crace’s book Depraved New World (Guardian Faber, £16.99) is out now. To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy and save 18% at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
