Losing the plot

Has the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom just suffered a nervous breakdown on live TV?

What else could explain Rishi Sunak's unscheduled appearance at the lectern outside Number 10 on a rain-drenched Downing Street earlier this evening looking dazed and confused? He delivered a rambling, incoherent address about national unity before turning on his heels and heading back indoors, taking no questions. It was an utterly bizarre and bemusing performance.

When a friend rang me to tell me Sunak was about to speak to the nation we, like many up and down the country I suspect, speculated as to the possible subject. Was he calling a general election? Were we at war? Was the King abdicating due to ill health? Was the Princess of Wales' condition life-threatening? When Sunak finally appeared the pretext appeared pretty flimsy: the outcome of the Rochdale byelection. What followed was a rambling series of non-sequiturs about peaceful protest, mob rule, community cohesion and patriotism.

If there's one man who doesn't need any more exposure than he's already got it's the shameless self-publicist, George Galloway, yet here was the PM laying it on with a trowel on prime time TV. 'Gorgeous' George's head must have swelled fit to bust his ridiculous fedora and, indeed, he has already responded that he looks forward to debating the matter with Sunak in the Chamber of the House of Commons next Wednesday at PMQs "if he's got the guts". Nice work, Rish!.

His pious talk about British values was rich (and he knows all there is to know about being rich) coming from a man whose party has spent the last fourteen years in government systematically dismantling every last vestige of common purpose whilst sowing discord, disunity, factionalism and hatred. When he talked about "forces here at home trying to drive us apart" was he talking of his own MPs? If the cap fits... But when he said his family owes so much to this country I nearly choked. Maybe his wife, Akshata Murthy, could repay the debt literally by refunding to the Treasury the £20 million in taxes she's avoided by holding on to her non-dom status.

Her husband's weird peroration, meanwhile, was an object lesson in self-delusion and if its purpose was to look statesmanlike and in control of events, projecting an image of caring and concerned leadership at a time of national crisis, it was an abject failure. He appeared weak, confused and desperate - and appearances in this instance were not deceptive. He has the reverse Midas touch, turning specie into dross at every turn. He is a straw man.

Hopefully one soon to be blown away by the winds of change.

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