It was just after Rishi Sunak had answered Stephen Flynn’s first question that the speaker intervened. The SNP leader in Westminster had merely wondered if some of the prime minister’s promises to fix the economy showed that he had been taking honesty lessons from Boris Johnson. This was too much for Lindsay Hoyle. He urged MPs to be more cautious in their use of language. There was a danger that people might think Flynn was accusing the prime minister of deliberately misleading parliament.
So there we had it. A new precedent. No one can now compare another MP to Boris Johnson, because to do so is to accuse them of lying. Spare a thought for Jacob Rees-Mogg. Or Jake Berry. Now officially banned from being mentioned in the same breath as their hero. From now on, “to do a Johnson” is officially translated in Hansard as “to habitually tell lies”.
This, then, will be Johnson’s legacy. Not Brexit. Though no one – least of all the current cabinet – wants to talk about Brexit these days. Everyone knows it’s been a complete disaster and is keen to distance themselves from it. Especially Sunak himself, who only a few years ago had been one of its leading advocates. How quickly he forgets. No, all that Johnson will be remembered for is as the prime minister who was slung out for an inability to tell the truth. Poetic justice.
Still, we should, I suppose, have been grateful that Rish! turned up to prime minister’s questions at all. On Monday he had invented any number of subsequent engagements to avoid having to abstain in person on the privileges committee report vote. According to his spokesperson – Rish! is increasingly unable to speak for himself – he had stayed away because he hadn’t wanted to influence anyone or anything.
You live and learn. There was I thinking that one of the main functions of any prime minister was to influence people. Perhaps Sunak is high-minded enough to attempt a new kind of politics. One where he will preface any speech he makes with a plea that people should think twice before believing a word he says. Because most of what he will be promising is almost certainly a Johnson. Though, come to think of it, the public are probably well ahead of the prime minister on this anyway. Many of us have learned the hard way that most of what he says comes with a health warning.
Even Rish!’s own backbenchers are having to re-evaluate their own leader. They had been promised – as a bare minimum – someone who was vaguely competent. Someone who could just about manage to get dressed by himself and could almost talk in meaningful sentences. Only it turns out that they have been badly let down. Sunak has proved to be no marked improvement on any of his predecessors, and his AI software is even worse than Theresa May’s. “I am delivering on the things that the people want delivering on,” he says.
Except he isn’t. Things are going from bad to worse. Inflation is stubbornly high, mortgages are becoming unaffordable, people are broke, and we’re still waiting on the promise of a government of honesty, integrity and accountability. The faces of his own MPs says it all. They are morose, almost silent. Lost in their own despair. Thinking of possible career moves after the next election. And that’s just the few who bother to show up. Week by week there are more and more empty spaces on the Tory benches.
Predictably, it was yet another slam-dunk win for Keir Starmer. He gives the impression of a man who is enjoying himself. A man who is now allowing himself to believe that he will be the next prime minister. A man not afraid to do whatever it takes to win power. Though that increasingly means just pointing out the obvious. Like, you promised to halve inflation. And what are you going to do about mortgages?
Rish! didn’t actually have any answer to anything. On inflation, he just got a bit hazy. Oh, that? That’s a global problem. Except you can’t have it both ways. You can’t take the credit for bringing it down – if and when that happens – if you’re going to say “nothing to do with me, guv” when it remains high. That’s a binary problem even Sunak’s limited Artificial Stupidity ought to be able to cope with.
As for mortgages, he was going to do … precisely nothing. Just hope that something worked out in the end. It wasn’t his fault if people had borrowed more than they could afford. Maybe they could downsize or something. He looked hopelessly behind him for inspiration from Jeremy Hunt. Who just looked blank. And a bit guilty. Jeremy genuinely knows nothing about economics. Or maths. His first move as chancellor was to buy a copy of Quantitive Easing for Dummies. It’s a worry. A chancellor who knows less about the economy than I do.
Starmer found time to get in a few digs about absenteeism, taking an interest in California interest rates – not that Sunak actually has a mortgage; he could buy a whole village for cash – and his penchant for helicopter travel. Rish! looked rattled. Chippy. Snippy. He can dish out the personal attacks but he can’t take them. He likes to be treated as a prince. All he could do was insist that Labour was ruining the country. He hasn’t quite got how this works. Or maybe he’s 18 months ahead of us and thinks Labour is in power.
There was no respite from the Labour backbenchers. Meg Hillier wondered if it was right for rule-breakers to become rule-makers. Sunak pleaded Pontius Pilate. He had merely waved Johnson’s honours through. Spinelessly. Unbothered that they had been drawn up by a discredited liar. Kevin Brennan asked what Sunak would call a prime minister too scared to vote against Johnson. “We are delivering …” Rish wittered. He isn’t. He really isn’t. Rattled again, he went to admit that Tory promises on hospitals weren’t going to be kept.
Sunak raced for the exit. Desperate to get away. Even he can see how this one plays out. It had been tempting at the start to think his poor performances at PMQs were one-offs. That he would improve. But he won’t. Because he can’t. He’s genuinely not very good at being prime minister. And the economy is not going to improve any time soon. Things will only get worse. And he and the Tories are stuck with him. It’s hard to tell who is enjoying this the least.