To the Parlimentary Press Gallery dinner, held in the splendour of the National Liberal Club. This event hasn’t been held for four years, with Press Gallery chair Sam Lister joking that ‘Boris Johnson locked the country down’ to avoid attending while Liz Truss resigned the day her invitation to this shindig arrived. Lister gave the opening speech, turning her wit on a series of politicians including Tom Tugendhat whom she quipped had gone from a ‘security minister to a security risk’ in record time.
But the highlight of the night was undoubtedly the speech by the Prime Minister. And Rishi Sunak took to the stage with aplomb, contrasting Lister’s rise with that of her counterpart Hugo Gye, the chairman of the lobby. Lister, Sunak said, had worked her way up from the local press and ‘Completely earned her place in the lobby here this year’ whereas ‘Hugo… Hugo went to Eton’ before teasing the ‘closet Remainer’ as one who had referred to Dominic Grieve as ‘my Prime Minister’. Sunak then turned his attention on the rest of the assembled hacks saying:
As for me I’m truly delighted to be here today… if I hadn’t spent enough time with journalists today of all days. But what more could a teetotal workaholic want just before a jam-packed party conference than a boozy dinner with a load of journalists? Given what a hard time you guys give me about my love of America, I am amused to see that you’ve imported this whole thing over here from America of all places. But they had Trevor Noah and we couldn’t even get Trevor Kavanagh here.
He pledged that he wouldn’t give ‘a speech shorter than one of Robert Peston’s questions’ before teasing Ed Balls and George Osborne’s new podcast. One recent episode had covered British music in the 1970s: ‘finally a Kennedy scholar and an Oxford graduate telling us the true meaning of punk.’ Sunak then gave an exclusive preview of conference karaoke, joking that:
I’ve heard on the grapevine Nadine and Boris are doing Nothing Compares 2 U, Liz Truss is apparently covering Shaggy’s It Wasn’t Me and I’ll be performing Elton John’s classic Tiny Dancer.
It wasn’t the only time Sunak sent himself up, with the PM also making light of his recent Net Zero press conference:
The ban on Christmas, I’ve scrapped it. The ban on Strictly, I’ve scrapped it. The calls to ban puppies? I’ve scrapped it too… I also know that some of you in this room raised eyebrows earlier this year when I decided to do my longest ever interview with Test Match Special. And I get it. A cricket obsessive chatting about his favourite sport at the home of cricket doesn’t exactly scream scrutiny and accountability. I hear you. So that’s why I’m pleased to tell you that my next set of interviews will be the toughest that I’ve ever faced. I’m doing an hour long sit down with Southampton Pharmacist Children’s Weekly. Next up is a probing exposé in the Stanford alumni newsletter. And perhaps my toughest ever grilling is going to be for the British Indian Star Wars Appreciation Society on their media page.
And with the one year anniversary of his succession to the premiership coming up, Sunak reflected on the woman who preceded him:
I’m glad to see Liz Truss has been quietly reflecting, not least on who’s to blame. HMT of course, OBR, BOE, IMF, HMV, DFS, AC/DC. In fact I can’t think of an acronym in public life that hasn’t been blamed – except perhaps the IEA.
Still that was nothing compared to what he said of Matt Hancock, the onetime Secretary of State for Health. According to Sunak:
Looking back over this tumultuous year, no one has had a busier year than Matt Hancock. It’s hard to keep up. I’m a Celebrity: Get Me Out of Here, Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins. And that’s just one reason that I’m so proud to have introduced the Online Safety Bill. It’s designed to prevent the spread of harmful, malicious and undignified content. Just like a 44-year-old former health secretary lip syncing to a Barbie song on TikTok. So, let me reassure you all actually, that banning online harms does not does not make me a puritan.
If the election doesn’t go his way next year, perhaps the PM can try the comedy circuit…
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