As this diary goes to press, Sunak’s attempt yesterday to brazen out his new bill on stopping the boats is already in rough waters. We learn that the bill for the Rwanda policy will actually be twice what was admitted. The £140 million announced did not include a further £100 million already spent, or a further £50 million still expected. Nor at the moment is it clear whether that is the end of the matter. There were reports this week that the gargantuan total cost will not be revealed until next summer.
(Is this a hint as to the timing of the general election? Sunak is not going to cherish the idea of revealing the full level of the scandal just before we go to the polls. So pencil in next May.)
But of course, his announcement could only add fuel to the furnace of bitter resentment among his more deluded right wingers, who wanted more. They always do. We are reminded of the comment by one Tory after David Cameron had given in to his troublemakers again. “David won’t learn that they will never take ‘yes’ for an answer”.
*
So did Rishi Sunak really believe this course of action would still the anger on his backbenches? He is unlikely to be that stupid. The parliamentary Conservative Party is, these days, split into ‘five families’, an appropriately Mafia-sounding term, only one of which – the One Nation group – were ever likely to accept the proposals, and then reluctantly.
So why is he doing it? Probably because he and his advisers believe they have to do something, anything, to try and look as though they are in control of events. Which of course they aren’t. We read also that letters to the chair of the 1922 committee are already coming in, demanding a vote of confidence in Mr Sunak. If that were to happen, then whatever the outcome of the vote Mr Sunak would be doomed, and what little remains of his reputation, shredded.
Before that though, next Tuesday the Rwanda scheme comes before the Commons. Bizarrely for what is the government’s most pressing policy, there is no three line whip on the vote – presumably because a defeat would be seen as effectively a vote of no confidence anyway, ahead of whatever the 1922 committee comes up with.
Christmas can’t come soon enough for the Tories, and in particular for their leader. Whatever he has told Santa he would like in his stocking, it seems likely he will be disappointed.
*
So let us play a little Christmas game. A fortune telling game, foretelling what will happen in the months ahead. Can Rishi Sunak last till Christmas without going through a confidence vote by his MPs? The House of Commons rises for recess on 19 December, 10 days away. Before that comes the Rwanda vote, which if lost could send the government into the Christmas recess reeling.
But the rebels will surely hold their hand. The prospect of emasculating the party leader and leaving the party and the country hanging without an effective prime minister over Christmas would be unconscionable. So the holiday may give Mr Sunak a brief respite. But by mid January the hounds will be in full cry again. Is there anything that can change his prospects? It doesn’t seem so. But the Tories’ problem is: with whom do they replace their leader this time. Badenoch? Braverman? Jenrick? Any of these would bring a revolt in the parliamentary party – let alone the country, which will then have had three consecutive prime ministers without having voted for any of them. The problem for the Conservatives, though, may not be getting rid of the present incumbent, but finding anybody to replace him who more than a minority of MPs could stomach.
*
The control freakery in the Labour Party is such that the whips seem likely to ban any greeting of ‘Merry Christmas!’ in case it might carry some hidden meaning. And Christmas cards? No Father Christmas figures, thank you very much. A jolly bearded old man from the past, promising presents for all, no matter what the cost, and moreover dressed head to foot in red? Santa Corbyn indeed, come on! Pecksniff has written previously about the omerta which covers the subject of Brexit in the people’s party. The problem arose again this week. A Labour politician apparently more than happy to discuss policy… “Let’s talk about Brexit then.” Silence. A long silence. On whatever rung of the Labour Party, it seems, mention of Brexit is verboten.
One of the consequences of hardly allowing Labour MPs to speak on these issues is that Labour’s MPs remain largely invisible. Keir Starmer may have an army of 200 behind him, but one wouldn’t know it. It is an army forbidden to fight.
*
Which brings us to our popular weekly poking Keir Starmer through the bars. And once again, what provokes this week’s entry is Brexit. Last weekend our man declared that the Conservatives had “failed to realise the possibilities of Brexit”.
The question is: can he really believe this nonsense? At the 2016 referendum, he supported Remain. He opposed Brexit. So what is it in the past seven years that has so dramatically changed his mind? The feted alumni of Brexit have one by one lost their desperate fingertip grip on their delusions and plummeted to a well deserved political oblivion. All their visions have been dashed. So where did Keir Starmer find his, and why is it nobody else sees what he sees?
Does he believe what he says? If he doesn’t then he is lying, which is not a great look for an incoming prime minister who will have to deal with Brexit’s repercussions, following on public revulsion at having been lied to by the present lot for years.
He didn’t have to choose this position. He had merely – as Chris Grey suggests in his blog – to point out that joining the EU again would require the full agreement of the British people. How could remaining Brexiters object to an expression of the democratic will?
*
Enough of party leaders and their idiocies, then. Who else do we have? What has our deputy prime minister been up to this week? Step forward Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere), for it is he. (No, really.) Mr Dowden’s contribution to the national debate this week has been to recommend (as far as can be told with a straight face) that we stock up on candles and torches, ready for this winter’s power cuts. Thirteen years of Conservative rule, and not even Mr Dowden can have imagined that after that time, to add to plummeting living standards, an NHS out on its feet and all the rest, he would cheerfully be advocating we prepare for lighting our homes in a manner abandoned by the early 19th century, during the reign of George III.
‘Oliver Dowden’ is an anagram of ‘wooden drivel’ and his further misfortune is that he gives the uncanny impression of having been born into captivity. Ours is that (checks notes again) he really is our deputy prime minister.
*
Priti Patel (Witham) remains something of an enigma. She was at one time the Tory most opponents loved to hate, but of course that was before she was replaced by Suella Braverman. Since then she has seemed to give up on attempts to become leader, though one can be sure that her ambition remains, whatever it is.
However, her tenure on the backbenches has not made her any wiser. As a fervent Brexiter, she has nevertheless been complaining about trade barriers placing her local food producers at a disadvantage. Those same barriers with our EU partners she voted for so keenly.
She was complaining to Kemi Badenoch (Saffron Walden), the business secretary, another keen Brexiter. She was able to reassure Ms Patel. Only last month she signed a deal with Japan – which neither she nor Ms Patel may have realised is on the other side of the world – which will be worth all of… oooh, two million quid a year.
*
EAB reported recently that Norwich Labour Party had lost control of Norwich City Council when three of their councillors resigned from the party to sit as independents. Now, even though the council has no Tory members and hasn’t had for years, politics there is just as poisonous. Only the poison is shared between Labour and the Greens. (One is told the Greens now include several former Corbynists from Labour, which would partially explain it.)
As to the resignations, one spy tells Pecksniff that the trouble did not include Labour HQ, as had been assumed, but was a row between the Labour group and one particular ward, Town Close. There are also grumblings about council leader Mike Stonard, who is described as having “grandiose schemes to turn the city into a cycling freeway where cyclists may mow down pedestrians at will”. (Notwithstanding that roads appear to be a county council matter.)
Cyclists v pedestrians. One to watch. A very Norwich row.
*
Dear reader, last week this missive was cut short by problems with what is called IT. This week, it is the common cold. Suffice to say, the wise men at the Muckrakers may have to deliberate this evening without your correspondent.
<<< Previous Pecksniff’s Diary
