At PMQs we saw the next year of politics condensed into a few seconds. Sir Keir Starmer asked the PM why he declined to call an election. ‘My working assumption is that the election will be in the second half of the year,’ said Rishi. So there it is. A date in October rather than January 2025. And he confidently expects to lose which is why he urged Labour’s Dan Carden to ‘chat with his shadow chancellor about her plan to impose £28 billion of tax rises on everyone.’
Sir Keir harried the PM on Rwanda which he called ‘a gimmick’ constantly. The g-word, clearly favoured by focus groups, was thrown across the aisle five times, and Rishi offered no substantial defence. Rwanda is a gift-wrapped, triple-layered vote-winner for Labour. First, on funding, second, on timing, third, on efficiency. Sir Keir is free to pluck figures out of thin air when he estimates the budget of the failed deportation scheme. He used to tell us that it cost millions, then tens of million, then hundreds of millions. It keeps ascending, endlessly, like an escalator at an empty departure lounge. If Sir Keir stood up and said that ‘Rwanda costs £350 million a week – let’s spend that on the NHS instead’ no one would bat an eyelid. Today he invented a new figure, ‘£600 million’, which he claimed would remove a mere 300 claimants. ‘The Prime Minister likes to spend a lot on jet-setting but that’s some plane ticket.’
More likely, teleportation will have been perfected before Rwanda accepts asylum-seekers from Britain
Not only is Rwanda a win for Labour but it’s a depressant for the Tories. They might as well believe in flying reindeer as in Rwanda. The first plane that takes off will be full of pensioners who’ve grown old on the Bibby Stockholm. That’s if the air-lift works at all. More likely, teleportation will have been perfected before Rwanda accepts asylum-seekers from Britain. People arriving on boats today should be offered a million pounds each to walk to Rwanda. They’ll get there before the first flight.
At today’s session something unusual happened. Words of value were uttered by the SNP’s Stephen Flynn, who has the distinction of being the most pompous individual to sit in the Commons since John Bercow. Flynn tends to talk about Gaza rather than about Scotland because he’s an internationalist, like his mentors, Christ and Nicola Sturgeon. He’s fixated by the resurgence of Scottish Labour, which threatens his power-base at home, and today he made a joke about neo-Thatcherites on the shadow front bench. Rishi laughed, genuinely snickered and giggled at this, and he answered Flynn with some bland wisecrack about soaring tax-rates in Scotland. But Flynn’s serious point was about Tory and Labour spending plans. ‘They are, in effect, identical,’ he said. ‘And with such continuity on offer, the public are right to be anti-Westminster.’
Rishi shrugged aside this alarming and obvious truth. His chipper mood at the despatch box was not just puzzling. It was insulting. Polls predict that’s he about to lead his army to the greatest defeat since the destruction of Carthage and yet he’s all smiles, charm and bonhomie. No problem. That’s what his body language says. Disaster at the election won’t matter to him because his next chapter is already being written. Like any globalist tech boss, he’s steering the firm on a steady-eddy course as his contract winds down. Meanwhile the incoming CEO selects his team, finalises his press releases and picks the new colours for the bean-bags.
With seven months before October, the election’s already over. The Tories are toast and Labour are in. Helicopter for the Sunaks, please.
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