Tories look embarrassed as Rishi Sunak seeks backbench validation

It can be a tough life. So spare a thought for Rishi Sunak. The most unfortunate multimillionaire you could hope to meet. A man who has never been properly able to enjoy his success as much as he had hoped. Primarily because almost nothing he has done has ever really impressed his family.

Take his career as a banker. First as a Goldman Sachs tech bro, then as a sales rep for a hedge fund. Just imagine how thrilled he must have been when one of his deals netted him his first £20m. He must have rushed home to tell his wife and in-laws the good news. Only they would have thought: “Is that all?” £20m is the sort of sum they barely get out of bed for. Just below an average day’s work.

At which point, Rish! realised he had to up his game. So he entered politics, and seven years later he has made it to prime minister. Top of the world, Ma? Not quite. Because even that doesn’t really impress anyone close to him. You’re prime minister of where? The UK. Oh. Couldn’t you get anywhere better? India or the US? Somewhere useful. So where do you live? No 10. Do you get to own it? No. What kind of a mug are you? You get the picture.

Sunak is a man in search of validation. He needs to feel needed. To feel as if he matters. That he makes a difference. And as he doesn’t really get it at home – sure they all love him, but somehow that’s not quite enough – he’s increasingly having to get it at work.

Yet even his colleagues are withholding it from him. Rish! is rarely seen outdoors except for prime minister’s questions, and most of the cabinet stay away from his weekly embarrassment at the dispatch box. Only Jeremy Hunt, keen to let everyone know he’s the one who’s really in charge, and Dominic Raab, desperate for the bodies to remain buried, are regulars. Like this Wednesday, Suella Braverman shows her face now and again. More often than she turns up to any Home Office parliamentary business. Naturally.

His backbenchers are equally fickle. Most believe the game is up. That the Tories are a party in terminal decline that will need a miracle to win the next election. So they are busy plotting their next move. Calculating whether it is worth hanging on for a period of opposition or getting out now. They too find PMQs excruciating. The failure of their leader illuminating their own failure. An unbearable symbiosis.

The only thing that makes some of them show their faces is the three-line whip imposed on them. There can’t be too many empty spaces on the government green benches or Rish! will get upset and lose confidence. And we can’t have that. Except it’s doomed to failure. Knowing that his MPs are only there under duress somehow negates everything. Sunak looks at the benches and he can only see the gaps.

There was one familiar face on the backbenches we hadn’t seen for several weeks. Step forward Matt Hancock. Looking even less substantial in the flesh than he had been on the TV. A success entirely confined to his own imagination. Door Matt was doing his best to look self-contained – never easy for another needy narcissist – and smug. That second bit wasn’t so hard.

Matty had the news everyone was dying for. Not. His resignation letter. Though he had told everyone last week he would not be standing down because he still had so much love to give, he was now in fact standing down at the next election because he had realised he had even more love to give.

Here was the thing. The Tories were finished. And he had outgrown parliament. Next stop, Love Island. He was a celeb. A star. And he was very, very much in love. And not just with himself. He wanted everyone in the country to share his insights. See me, feel me, touch me. He knew it would be a huge loss for Westminster. For the UK. For the world. An end to one of the finest parliamentary careers of his generation. Oh, and his constituency association had wanted him out. Truly, he remains the wanker’s wanker.

Keir Starmer opened on the latest Sunak U-turn. Well, one of them. It’s hard to keep up. How did Sunak propose to reach his target of 300,000 new homes a year now he had signed off on the nimby’s charter? Rish!’s voice became shrill. He was determined to stand up to the Labour leader this time. He wasn’t weak, he shrieked. He was really, really strong. So strong that it could almost look weak. In any case, how many houses had Labour ever built?

After a few halfhearted exchanges – “You’re weak”, “No you’re weak” – that didn’t really get us anywhere, the Labour leader went for the kill. How had Michelle Mone got away with pocketing £29m? Sunak professed amazement. He was shocked! He had no idea that such a thing was possible. He clearly hadn’t read the Guardian stories over the past couple of weeks. Or realised that he’d been the chancellor who signed the cheques.

It was right that the baroness had taken a leave of absence from the Lords. As that saved him the hassle of deciding whether he cared enough to remove the Conservative whip from her. Hell, it was only £29m she had trousered. What was the problem? Just think of his in-laws.

And remember too just how crazy and chaotic the pandemic had been. All that rule-breaking and partying that had been going on in No 10. Who could blame the odd Tory peer for thinking that they were in a lawless wild west where any amount of profiteering was justifiable. Poor Michelle. Pilloried for just being ahead of the game.

Gradually realising this probably wasn’t his finest hour, Rish! tried changing the subject to strikes. What was Labour doing about them? Last heard, Labour wasn’t the government. In any case, the transport secretary, Mark Harper, had earlier admitted the government had made a bad situation worse. Sunak looked at his notes, bigging himself up for a grand finale. None came. Starmer got all serious about strep A and the prime minister had to leave his best lines on the cutting room floor.

From there, it was all an anticlimax. The one highlight being Sunak claiming the pandemic to be the government’s finest hour. Brexit doesn’t get a mention these days. Best forgotten. Rish! dashed for the exit. It had been an improvement on some outings, but still sinking. Whatever he did now was pointless. Not waving but drowning.