Was that really it? Another hastily called press conference on government premises that was really just a third-rate party political broadcast. There used to be rules about that sort of thing. Not that it did Rishi Sunak much good. Many more of these tetchy, moany outings and the Tories’ ratings will be even lower.
On the plus side, it was short and sweet. Blink and you’d have missed the opening whinge. All done and dusted in well under three minutes. Though that’s still three minutes of our lives we will never get back.
Perhaps I should have been thankful that yet again he refused to let sketch writers in to Downing Street to watch in person. Not even an email reply explaining why not. This is getting to be a habit. Sunak even tried to exclude me from his conference speech in Manchester. For a prime minister who claims to channel the democratic will of the people – more later – he sure as hell doesn’t like any form of accountability. Maybe he should actually try to get himself elected some day.
The morning after the night before. You’d have thought that most people would have wanted to curl up under the duvet and not come out after the last three days that Sunak has had.
Moments after his self-styled election guru, Isaac Levido, had instructed Tory MPs to unite or face annihilation, the party had gone into battle with itself. The right versus the far right. The only reason the Rwanda bill had passed was because at the last minute the Conservatives had concluded they would like their demise to be later rather than sooner. Victories don’t come much more hollow than this.
Then there was the latest opinion poll. Sunak’s Tories were now 27 points behind Labour. That’s the same gap that Liz Truss had after dynamiting the economy. Imagine being that bad. That mistrusted. And Rish! was supposed to be a safe pair of hands. The tech bro who could manage the party’s decline. Now he too was also officially less popular – less effective – than a lettuce. That’s some achievement. Borderline heroic.
But for Sunak the passing of the third reading of the Rwanda bill was not just another minor humiliation in a long line of other humiliations. It was a Triumph of the Will. More a cold and broken hallelujah. It’s come to this. A prime minister with a large majority feels the need to do a victory lap just because fewer of his own MPs than might have been expected rebelled. All hail the brave Lee Anderson for abstaining because opposition MPs might have laughed at him. Will we be getting more press conferences every time the government wins a vote? It could get very tedious.
Rish! dashed to the podium. Trying to look authoritative, not just needy. A tough one. No one – not even his family – sees him as anything more than an interim prime minister. We’re just trying to get through the next few months without him doing even more damage to the country.
“The Conservative party has come together,” he squeaked, unconvincingly. Er … if you say so. Though only to preserve itself. Not because it thinks the Rwanda bill is workable. Half the Tories are horrified at how far the party has lurched in its willingness to ignore international law. The other half feel it hasn’t gone nearly far enough. And then there are the halfwits, like Thérèse Coffey, who still haven’t been able to locate Rwanda on the map. She’s just a 30p Kiga Lee.
Moving on. Sending refugees to Rwanda was “The will of the people”. That last refuge of the half-arsed populist who has run out of road. To recap. The Rwanda plan was only dreamed up as a distraction to get Boris Johnson out of a Partygate hole. It was never intended to be implemented.
Hell, even Rwanda doesn’t want anything to do with it any more and it has trousered £400m of UK money. Not even Sunak and Cleverly believe it will work. The public has not been allowed a say. And if you’re worried about immigration, why not start with the 700,000 people the Tories have allowed in legally? Far better to pick on 30,000 refugees arriving in small boats.
Then to the nitty-gritty. Unelected lords should not be allowed to hold up the bill. That would presumably include Lord Big Dave. Our unaccountable foreign secretary. But no, the lords must not be allowed to do their job of trying to improve bad legislation. Because it would be far better to have a rubbish law than allow anyone else to get their mitts on it. And in any case, the government would ignore anything the Lords said so why not cut to the chase? With this logic, we might as well all give up now. Hell, we’re all going to die some time. So why not now?
“Labour … No plan … Square one,” Sunak muttered dementedly. Now on auto repeat. We could have been listening to a whiny, automated Maybot. Downing Street must have still kept the 1980s Amstrad malware. It was bonkers. Labour has plenty of plans. Surely Rish! knows that. Starmer has gone on and on about his Missions. You may not like them, but they exist. But Sunak can’t handle this reality. So he invents his own and tries to persuade us to join his fantasy. He’s like a teenager who has spent too long on his PlayStation. As for Square One? Gimme, gimme, gimme. Anything has to be better than where we are. Square Minus Three?
As he moved on to questions, Rish! got progressively more tetchy. He always does. He just hates being challenged. Breakfast with him must be hell. “Can you pass the milk please?” “Why the fuck should I? What are you going to do for me? How about some gratitude?” Everything was just fine because he had said it was. Why did he need to keep repeating himself. Journalists should just learn to listen properly and shut the fuck up.
“Our plan is working,” he yelled, sounding like a nasal mosquito. “Albania …” Can someone spell it out to him? Is he deliberately stupid? Sending Albanians back to Albania is not the same thing as sending Afghans to Rwanda. What’s more, the supreme court has said Rwanda is unsafe. What more do you need? Finding a tame KC who is looking for a safe Tory seat – if there is such a thing – who agrees with you doesn’t really cut it.
But the irritation couldn’t conceal the truth. Because when asked a direct question, he couldn’t guarantee that a single refugee would be deported this year. He couldn’t quite bring himself to say he would break international law in every circumstance. “It will all be the fault of the Lords,” he said. Getting his excuses in early.
Because deep down he wants the Lords to block him for as long as possible. Then he has an imagined enemy. For if one flight did take off, what then? The Rwanda plan would be exposed as a sham. Just 100 deportees out of more than 100,000 who have come here. Many of whom the government has no idea where they are. That’s no deterrent. The boats will keep on coming. Maybe the Lords should call Sunak’s bluff?
