“Fresh trousers for Sunak, please …”
Rishi publicly shits himself again. Because of course he does.
It’s Conservative Manifesto Launch Day! Break out the bunting. Or the tranquillisers, depending on your preference. Me? I think I need ketamine. About 20kg should do me after that.
What was it, other than a collection of all the terrible ideas they’ve already had, packaged up into one massive unflushable turd that would probably block up any river it was discharged into.
One of the riffs Sunak likes is complaining about Labour’s economic record. So he tried to claim Labour left Britain “on the brink of bankruptcy” when it was last in power. This is a bit rich, considering he was asking for extenuating circumstances to be applied to the shitshow he (amongst others) made of the economy follwing post-Brexit and pandemic (mis)management, citing the “tough international circumstances”. Odd how they conveniently forgot about those when thinking about the earthquakes in the US financial markets that preciptated the 2008 financial crash. And his Foreign Secretary was, mere months before that (along with George Osborne), happily telling anyone who’d listen that market regulation was too onerous. Erm.
He’s also still banging on about the “2000 pounds”, like Captain Flint adjusted for inflation, he keeps sqwaking it out. Or shitting it, if we’re being less polite. It’s almost sort of appropriate, given how obsessed he is by inflation. And while he’s hammering on about tax, then he brings back the conversation about national insurance thing. It must sound a wizard idea when you’re worth £700m+, and can quite comfortably generate income of around £40-50m year on it, around a million a week. No one one struggling on the sharp end of the economy is going to thank them for this little wheeze, especially when he conveniently forgets to mention Jeremy Hunt’s freezing the tax threshold shithousery, and the fact that the overall tax burden is the highest in living memory for most of us. So much for strong and stable.
Prices are now around 20% higher than they were in 2021. and though he keeps crowing about lower inflation, it means prices are still rising, just a bit less quickly. And they are still rising quicker than many people’s incomes are. When you do the sums, most of us are getting poorer in real terms. That inflation is not being pushed by wage demands either, but by structural problems in the economy, which he’s not even wanting to admit exist at all, mostly because then people might starting asking who is responsible for lots of them.
Part of that 30% increase in prices is tied up in energy costs. Remind us, what’s the average families energy bill compared to 2019, Rishi? Who was in government for this? Who directed the activities of the energy regulator? Average bills for typical annual consumption under the quarterly cap from April 2024 will be around £600 or 56% above their summer 2021 levels.¹
Cutting tax might even seem like a good idea, but in the face of these price rises, the national insurance idea is trifling. And, to be honest, no one thought was a great idea last time they said it, but but it still hasn’t stopped them from reanimating that particular corpse. While they were doing that, they paire dit with the ever reliable vague promise of “welfare reform”. But we all know what that means. Fuck the poor, the sick and the most vulnerable, and remove the fast shrinking safety nets that exist for them. As usual.
The manifesto also promises a “relentless, continual process” of deportations to Rwanda with a “regular rhythm”. If we ever learned anything growing up it was that you never ever believe someone who says they’ll practise the rhythm method, and that it’s guaranteed to work. Perhaps not destroying the immigration system, leaving huge unsustainable backogs, to remove almost any chance of applying legally would help there. And while we are on the Rwanda thing, there was tantalising, near orgasmic, hint for his own right wing that they’ll probably ditch the ECHR. The one we helped to write.
Then there was education. Apparently “90% of schools are now outstanding”, according to Sunak and Gillian Keegan. Please define “outstanding”. And if 90% of them are outstanding, in what way are they standing out? What does the word even mean any more? That said, given the structural problems in many schools and the state of the concrete, maybe we’re just mishearing and he’s saying they’re “still standing”, which in current circs he’s counting as a win. Small victories, eh? Then Gillian Keegan, who says she is not a typical Tory, tell us all about apprenticeships, and how she left school at 16 to do an apprenticeship. Funny how she then totally forgets the degree and masters degree she did afterwards. And they’ll fund all of this by getting rid of “Mickey Mouse” degrees. Except no one seems to be able to name one. Perhaps start with Oxford PPE, the perennial General Studies for the pushy and chinless.
Sunak repeats a line used by Penny Mordaunt in her TV debate on Friday , where claiming the only thing GB stands for in Labour’s GB Energy plans is greater bills. Given the earlier stat about energy price rises, it’s a bit rich. It’s a tell of how desperate and barrel-scraping they are that this is considered some massive haymaking zinger.
Sunak also says the Tories will recruit new police officers. But he then forgets to mention that all this recruitment would be lucky to get us back to 2010 staffing levels, before Gideon got his clammy hands on the Treasury, and Dave the dish-faced faineant went with it. But of course all this spending is going to be paid for with “efficiency savings”. Where does he think that will come from in places like prisons, and the police, not to mention the NHS? Maybe introducing pointless internal markets for things that don’t need them might have something to do with it.
All through the morning, as these things were being announced, I just felt an increasing sense of disconnection. Sunak said he was “not blind to the fact” that people are “frustrated” with the party, and with him personally, but he doesn’t show any particular sign of being connected to anything, except the spreadsheet detailing has investment returns. Every policy announcement seemed precisely calibrated to be be unremittingly terrible, and tone deaf, presented in the shoddiest, most inane and amateurish way. And with it all, there seems to be the tacit understanding that they are going to get hammered, but their subtext is limited to “ … but please vote for us because Labour would be worse, and a big majority worse still”. Of course. It’s always bad when it’s not you with the power, isn’t it?. I didn’t see them lamenting their own 80 seat majority in 2019. In the wings, you can almost see Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick preparing for their Great Leap Forward, and the possible launch of a rebel manifesto, because that will make voters think they’re capable, united and not lunatic rats fighting in a sack at all, won’t it?
There’s another 22 days of this shit before the polls open. How much worse can he, and they, get? No. Don’t answer.
