It’s election year! And you know what that means? Because we don’t – namely because the last several elections have consistently bucked expectations. While it’s too early to tell what fresh horrors await us, it isn’t too early to start commenting on the electioneering process. On Sunday 7 January, prime minister Rishi Sunak attempted to fire the starting gun on his election year in an interview with the BBC‘s Laura Kuenssberg.
His gun misfired. And then it made a damp farting noise. And then it actually went off and shot him in the foot.
Sunak: uninteresting times
As exciting as the starting gun analogy sounds, the key takeaway was that Sunak just isn’t very interesting:
Sunak was terrible on Kuenssberg. Even worse than I thought he’d be. It’s hard for any politician to be that skittish and yet that boring at the same time, yet Sunak managed it. I would say it was a disaster for him if he wasn’t politically finished already anyhow.
— Nick Tyrone (@NicholasTyrone) January 7, 2024
Depending on the political landscape, boringness could be a strength or weakness. On the one hand, boring politicians don’t stand out; on the other hand, it’s a huge benefit when your opposition stands out for all the wrong reasons. In the 2024 election, it’s unlikely boringness will be a deciding factor, as it’s a quality both Sunak and Starmer have in spades:
This would be silly if true; Starmer in debate is boring whereas Sunak is really really bad – petulant and dislikable https://t.co/4eaWahespJ
— John B (@johnb78) December 31, 2023
The above commenter is being fairly charitable to Starmer, as his problems go way beyond boringness:
The pain in Starmer's eyes as he's forcing himself to smile while he repeats his desperate prepared lines over and over and over again lol. This really is the Miliband era all over again. https://t.co/1LDLvXlWDU
— Hollywood (@J_MoAGoGo) May 6, 2022
Keir Starmer asked about 6 questions and repeats the same answer for every one. 😂
Pre-written robot can't think for himself. https://t.co/3xWG78IvoU
— An Outlier of Black Box Thinking (@OutlierBlackBox) July 7, 2022
In any election, boringness is likely to benefit the Tories most. As reported by the Independent:
The Tories are only supported by over-65-year-olds ahead of a looming general election, a tracker of polls reveals.
Rishi Sunak’s party is trailing Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour with voters in every age group except the over-65s, according to The Economist.
The party enjoys the support of 40 per cent of people in the oldest age bracket, compared with just 18 per cent of those aged between 18 and 34. At the last election, two thirds of over-65s voted for the Conservatives.
Meanwhile Labour is backed by more than half of 18 to 34-year-olds, and leads in the polls with everybody 64 and under.
Older people are more likely to vote than young people, and there’s a risk that Starmer proves so uninspiring that people just don’t bother (or they vote Greens/Lib Dems/other).
So, is Sunak’s weapon-grade boringness actually a clever strategy? No – he’s obviously just a very dull person. He also has the same problem Starmer does in that he can’t talk about what he actually wants – a country which solely benefits his wealthy backers – so he has to stick to the script.
The dull, dull script…
“Lies, damned lies, and statistics”
Sunak is a politician, so obviously a lot of what he said was horseshit. People were quick to point this out:
Rishi Sunak attempting to claim the NHS waiting list is so high due to industrial action
Here’s a graph to show just how deceitful he is…#bbclaurak pic.twitter.com/y20fodTPjd
— David (@Zero_4) January 7, 2024
Rishi Sunak tells Laura Kuenssberg the Post Office miscarriages of justice “all happened a long time ago, in the 1990s”. Eh?
The 700 wrongful convictions of subpostmasters prosecuted by the Post Office using flawed Horizon evidence were made between 1999 and *2015* #bbclaurak
— Ian Fraser (@Ian_Fraser) January 7, 2024
The headline of Kuenssberg’s latest blog was:
New year, new tactics but old problems for Sunak
Arguably, however, Sunak doesn’t have “new tactics”; he’s only ever had one tactic, and that’s to wildly spin like a political weathercock. The only winds he seems to register, however, are those of the pant-pissingly reactionary elements of his party (and the right-wing media). This is why Sunak is gutting environmental protections even as floods ravage the country:
FLOODS
1,800+ homes affected
192 flood warnings
207 alerts
in place in England TODAY.Where is Environment Sec Steve Barclay? It's his actual job.
Why hasn't Rishi Sunak visited any flood hit areas?
TORIES CUT PROTECTION BY 40%@NAOorguk found Tory commitment made in 2020 of… pic.twitter.com/1Gl4DbkbVZ
— Carol Vorderman (@carolvorders) January 7, 2024
Former Tory minister Chris Skidmore is quitting as MP & leaving Tory party in protest at UK government’s plans to drill for more North Sea oil
His resignation letter: “a tragedy that UK has been allowed to lose its climate leadership” under PM Rishi Sunak https://t.co/HvYJ0Udd53
— Jean-Michel Glachant (@JMGlachant) January 7, 2024
'They are listening far more to the tabloids than the public,'
As MP Chris Skidmore resigns over new oil and gas licences, Tom Burke, CEO of Environmental Think Tank E3G, tells @PaulBrandITV that the government are 'misreading' how much the public care about climate change. pic.twitter.com/p42Pvtlqcl
— LBC (@LBC) January 7, 2024
TWO MONTHS AGO…
Nearly 6 Million Homes at Risk of Flooding as Rishi Sunak Cut Flood Protection Schemes https://t.co/zFTieDfVlI
— Byline Times (@BylineTimes) January 7, 2024
It’s also why Sunak is happy to make us an international pariah for the benefit of pleasing a handful of nationalist weirdos:
It’s so deeply dangerous for Rishi Sunak to dismiss the rule of international law in such a cavalier way. This shouldn’t be normalised. If we’re not going to abide by agreements we’ve signed up to, why should anyone else? #bbclaurak
— Caroline Lucas (@CarolineLucas) January 7, 2024
Perhaps the most tawdry of all, however, is Sunak’s ‘new’ plan to facilitate tax cuts for the rich via another round of austerity:
Rishi Sunak threatens to snatch cash from families on Universal Credit to pay for tax cutshttps://t.co/yNsYa9VdOJ
— Mirror Politics (@MirrorPolitics) January 7, 2024
Unfunny yet laughable Sunak
The most ridiculous moment in the Sunak interview was when he said the following:
Sunak just said “it’s not about slogans”
I shit you not, he actually said “it’s not about slogans” what a fucking charlatan… #bbclaurak pic.twitter.com/S1dV4BWK9R
— Ian Ibbotson (@ian_ibbotson) January 7, 2024
People were quick to point out the hypocrisy of Sunak saying this:
RISHI SUNAK JUST SAID POLITICS ITS NOT ABOUT SLOGANS! THE GUY WHO SCREAMED STOP THE BOATS #BBCLauraK pic.twitter.com/ZCvzxSsfIo
— Duke of Preston (@DOPreston) January 7, 2024
Rishi Sunak: “It’s not about slogans”#bbclaurak pic.twitter.com/nNMa2oL5Zt
— David (@Zero_4) January 7, 2024
And it didn’t stop there:
“It’s not about slogans” says Rishi Sunak#bbclaurak pic.twitter.com/OFezRsOHnQ
— Hughesy #SaveOurNHS 🏴🇺🇦🇪🇺 (@Hughesy53) January 7, 2024
Or even there:
"It's not about slogans", says Eat out to Help out Sunak, there #bbclaurak
— leah stalker (@leah_stalker) January 7, 2024
Bravely, Sunak used the ‘it’s not about slogans’ line to setup another slogan:
Sunak’s says “it’s not about slogans”… immediately followed by “it’s about let’s stick to the plan”. Ha
— Harry Cole (@MrHarryCole) January 7, 2024
Maybe ‘It’s Not About Slogans’ will become a slogan itself with Sunak spearheading the first post-modern election? It’s unclear if that would make things less or more boring. You’d imagine that Starmer would quickly ape the approach – probably with an anti-slogan of his own like ‘Slogans Aren’t Working’.
All change
It’s hard to imagine Sunak having anything other than a terrible election. It’s equally hard to imagine Starmer impressing once the media spotlight is on him. At this point, it seems like the most likely outcome is a Labour victory – even if Starmer manages to piss away half of his current lead (or he bores a sizeable portion of the electorate into a sleep coma).
The thing to bear in mind is this: when was the last time an election went how anyone thought it would at the beginning of the same year?
Featured image via Number 10 – Flickr (image cropped to 770 x 403)
