Yesterday's Man Won't Fix The Prime Minister's Problems

Lord Cameron is the wrong person in wrong job.

Oh dear. This government, currently headed by Rishi Sunack, is finally revealing its true colours. First it sacks the first Home Secretary for a decade who understood that the country outside the Westminster bubble never voted for multiculturalism (whatever that is), is fed up with out of control immigration, rather resents often violent demonstrations against the fabric of this country and feel that the police are more committed to supporting woke madness than protecting the King's Peace, arresting criminals and upholding the rule of law.

To be fair, it may well be that James Cleverly is the second Home Secretary for a decade who gets that. Unfortunately he's been replaced as Foreign Secretary by the urgently ennobled David Cameron. He lost all credibility with the country and what were then our European partners when his negotiation of revised British membership terms failed, leading directly to the Brexit vote. He rigged that and still lost it. Finally, in a fit of personal pique, he resigned, thereby creating the circumstances in which the hapless, hopeless and helpless Maybot became the worst Prime Minister ever, who was then replaced by Boris the shopping trolley.

How will Cameron command any respect from the EU? He assured them that the UK would vote to remain part of it? His close association with China will also cramp his style a bit and his alleged Bullingdon affection for pigs might not play well in Arabia.

It is true that Cameron did a pretty sound job after the financial crisis, although he left the country with an unfortunate debt habit and the ruinous QE mechanism (which his successors used to the full). He did manage some cuts, but they have long been circumvented. Other than agreeing with Nick Clegg and hugging hoodies he achieved little beyond delivering the one thing that he didn’t want, Brexit.

Despite his urbane charm and polished presentation, I don't see how he is going to save the Tories from electoral destruction. The 58% of Tory voters who voted for Brexit are unlikely to be impressed. Neither will most of the “blue wall” seats who voted for Boris Johnson. If, as some commentators suggest, this is a reshuffle for an election it's a strange way to go about it.

Of course, Mr Sunak inherited a huge mess. The party of law and order seems only able to supress those who questioned vaccines. The party of business raised corporation tax. The party of sound economics has delivered recession, inflation and staggering national debt. The party of strong defence has left the country with no airborne early warning, an army that can barely field a credible brigade and a navy desperately short of frigates. The party of libertarian self reliance jailed us and then created record numbers of welfare dependents. And, of course, there;s the problem of the boats and uncontrolled immigration. Who in their right minds could possibly vote conservative.

Much of the fiasco was obvious before Johnson was elected. However the alternative was Corbyn the commie (and Palestinian). Sir Kier Starmer may have the charisma of a manhole cover and be greyer than a foggy February day but that's no worse than Theresa May. His reinvigorated not-quite-new labour has trimmed the lefties. Worse for Sunak is the threat of the Reform party, who don't have to win much of the vote to consign the Tories to a long overdue oblivion. Rishi could be the last Conservative Prime Minister ever.

The only infallible weapon that Sunack has is that he, and only he, picks when the election will be. Things are not going to get better in the next few months; the autumn statement may shuffle the numbers but the country is broke. If the wind falls at the same time as a cold snap we will run out of electricity. World peace won't be infecting Ukraine or Israel any time soon and dramatic economic recovery this winter is unlikely.

I would not be surprised if he called a snap election. The shortest timetable possible is 25 working days. While having an election campaign during the run up to Christmas would be novel an early end to the reign of this party of ineptitude would please almost everyone.