Whingeing In The Rain

The tell-tale signs had been there earlier yesterday, as more than one cabinet minister ducked out of media and other appearances. So when amateur Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stepped out of 10 Downing Street into a torrential downpour - there’s a bad omen if ever one was needed - it was obvious that he was about to do what Denis Healey once called “cut and run”.

Sadly for Sunak, such was his Billy No Mates presence that there was not even someone to hold an umbrella. Nor was his team sensible enough to change the venue to the Downing Street media room. And so it was that the electorate was told that the Tories were out of ideas, and out of time. There would be a General Election on the fourth of July. Independence Day, eh?

That date is also Independence Day in Rwanda. Oh the irony! Such was Sunak’s timing that, together with a Labour commitment to end the farce of deportations to that country, that no deportation flights will happen. Even though Sunak had said they would. Instead, his briefing to the assembled media was turned into a whingefest directed at Keir Starmer.

Not that too many will have remembered that, after someone (wasn’t Steve Bray, was it?) blasted the 1997 New Labour signature anthem “Things Can Only Get Better” from the end of Downing Street. The Guardian’s Pippa Crerar mused “Inauspicious start to campaign”, while even Laura Kuenssberg had to admit Sunak’s presentation was “not the authority of credibility”.

Meanwhile, after the Tories continued to alienate the media by chucking Sky News out of Downing Street, came Starmer’s response. James Chapman was impressed. “Well that Starmer speech was streets ahead of Sunak's, both in terms of the optics and content, with a compelling change narrative. I suspect Starmer is going to surprise on the upside in a campaign”.

That alienation, as Rachel Cunliffe of the Staggers pointed out, was not trivial: “It's not just journos but MPs, spads, MINISTERS who got the green light from No10 that the summer was safe. That's a lot of ill will to kick off a campaign with. From those on your own side”. Then came a truly wacko intervention by Christopher “No” Hope of GB “News”.

“Some furious Conservative MPs are tonight working on a plot to CALL OFF the general election by replacing Rishi Sunak as leader before Parliament is dissolved next Thursday”. But all it tells us is that there are those in the right-leaning media who are prepared to spray their credibility up the wall by recycling anything the Tories tell them. While backing The Blue Team.

Just what that will look like can be seen from this morning’s front pages. The Murdoch Sun brings us the news while avoiding using the photo of Sunak getting drenched outside No 10. Not quite “The Sun backs Blair”, is it? And the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph was also on message.

Obedient pundits were grovelling from the off, with Jeremy Warner declaring “The economic stars are aligned”, and wacko Janet Daley claiming “Starmer will be worrying now”. The Daily Brexit, still called the Express, told its faithful readers “The Prime Minister made a rallying cry for Express readers to get behind him”, and the Mail pontificated “Rishi seizes the initiative”. Like heck he did. Also, the Mail has more inside. Maybe too much more.

Sarah Vine obediently tells “This is about Sunak the man taking control and fighting his case head on”, while deeply unfunny churnalist Richard Littlejohn, live from North Vero Beach in Florida, concludes “Time for Rishi to summon up the blood, go for broke”. Not for nothing did Michael Heseltine decide “It is going to be the most dishonest General Election of my lifetime”.

The Tories are going to get a shellacking. But they might get a worse shellacking later. Hence Sunak deciding he had to turn and face his pursuers, despite teeing off many on his own side. And his media pals will back him to the hilt, despite the UK having been made a laughing stock over the past 14 years of inept and indeed corrupt leadership. That’s who they care about.

Rich people paying the desperate and greedy of the media to support their continued enrichment. This time the voters might just ignore them.

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