Both Rishi Sunak and most of what he said at his first Prime Minister’s Questions might be described in the same way - a bit rich.
Under a greatest hits set of questions from Keir Starmer, the newly minted PM mocked Labour for “finally understanding that spending has to be paid for” - a realisation that eluded members of his own cabinet as recently as Friday.
Then came the inevitable callback to Sunak’s secretly recorded admission that he’d diverted cash from poor urban areas to Tory constituencies.
His response was to boast that after 14 years of Tory government areas of deprivation were not restricted to London, but spread throughout the country.
Tory backbenchers will presumably realise that’s not a terribly good thing at some point this afternoon, but in the moment they roared with approval.
The thing about Rishi Sunak is that he’s got an answer for everything that sounds really grown up and clever until you sit down and think about it, at which point it becomes clear that it was stupid all along.
Eat Out To Help Out, the photo op at a petrol station where it was revealed he can’t work a debit card, the £180 bluetooth mug - all examples of Sunak straddling the fine, Spinal Tap line between clever and stupid.
Rewarding colleagues who helped you rally enough support to beat Boris Johnson into Number 10 - like Gavin Williamson and Suella Braverman - probably seemed a good idea at the time.
Braverman was called to the Commons this afternoon to explain how she managed to rise from the dead in just six days - a record beaten only by Lazarus and his best mate.
And then there’s twice-sacked Williamson, who was under rehabilitation for his first offence of allegedly leaking from national security meetings (which he denied), when he was sacked a second time for screwing up a year’s worth of A-Level results.
At PMQs, Sunak insisted Gav’s alleged security infractions had been four whole years ago and… you know, come on! Why is everyone being so mean?
And his spokespeople insisted Suella’s slate had been wiped clean because of the wealth of experience she’d built up at the Home Office in her six weeks as Home Secretary.
We look forward to Ms Braverman’s approach to sentencing guidelines and rehabilitation of offenders with great interest.
It’s perhaps unkind to suggest Mr Sunak’s premiership is off to a rocky start.
But so far, he and his team have shown little zeal for avoiding the carpet of landmines they laid for themselves on the road from ‘trounced by someone who was beaten by a lettuce’ to First Lord of the Treasury.
