Namaste, Rishi Coming or Going?

Firstly, As one vertically challenged brown guy to another, I would like to congratulate you on your elevation and anointment to the position of Prime Minister by the overwhelming endorsement of some 200 Tory MPs. This is an important moment in British political history and pride for British Asians and other minorities. I like you I am of Indian descent but that’s where the similarities end. You went to a private school, I went to a state secondary school, you are a Hindu and my father though a Hindu, gave me the freedom to determine my faith or otherwise. He said, “I may have contributed to your creation but never simply want you to be my reflection” furthermore, he emphasised my individuality by expressing his role as a father, which was to liberate and not to indoctrinate. Someone said to me that your anointment as PM shows Trickle Down Racism, I disagreed, it showed you belonged to the so-called cognitive elite, the new robber barons.

You are a social conservative; I am a lefty liberal. Your social conservatism is highlighted by your failure to vote and engage on issues on a woman’s right to choose and equal marriage. You have bought the Honey Monster’s sycophants back into your cabinet and given Cruella back her job as Home Secretary. In effect, not a reboot but a resurrection. Braverman’s reappointment as Home Secretary only 6 days after she was sacked for breaking the ministerial code defies credulity or maybe your faith defines penance as 6 days and on the seventh day, your back. This is a woman whose dream was to watch flights filled with refugees being renditioned to Rwanda, who also advocates for the UK to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights. All this to implement her new asylum and rendition policies unhindered, which you support. Jake Berry former Tory Chairman has suggested that the breaches by Braverman were numerous and serious. I love a bit of blue on blue, but are you that beholden to her and her ERG colleagues for your premiership? So much for your Hindu piety and your understanding of Dharma which includes generosity of spirit, non-injury and service to your fellow human being. 

I can understand your narrow political agenda, to unite and save the Tory party from electoral oblivion but please do not dress this up as integrity. The last man that tried to use integrity and political pluralism as a rouse to save the Tory party was Cameron and that has not turned out very well, the effects of which still haunt us today. You as a newbie MP supported Brexit as the panacea to becoming “Global” Britain which sounds a bit like the myth of “Great” Britain. I am not sure if you are a true believer in Brexit or a political opportunist, either way, it smacks of dishonesty. We as a country are no longer a bridge between the US and the Eu, in a world that is moving from globalisation to regionalisation largely to shorten and secure supply chains. The UK’s GDP which was 88% of Germany in 2015 is now 77% of Germany. The Economist has renamed this country as Britaly, wow, how the mighty fall. Despite all this, there is an upside to your appointment as PM, the removal of the Truss the Blundering and Crazy Kwarteng.

I on the left of politics also believe in growth, but sustainable(climate-friendly) growth. This is through long-term investment in our education system including apprenticeship programs that deliver much-needed skills, infrastructure, an industrial policy for the coming decade, accelerated investment in renewable energy, supporting critical industries and not agreeing to sell them to the Chinese, as was the case of our last chip manufacturer. Guess who agreed to that, yes it was Crazy Kwarteng.  My concern is that you will do austerity mark two and a bit of trickle-down in drag, at the heart of which will be deregulation, driving a further wedge between labour and capital.

You talk about compassion, almost with sincerity. If you have compassion for the most vulnerable as you say, you must believe in redistribution, anything less is political bullshit and platitudes.

My final bit of advice is to read the book The Social Distance Between Us, by Darren McGarvey.

This book is about the distance between those who govern and the governed,” The distance between the powerful and the powerless. The affluent and the poor. How their interests and values diverge and the assumptions they make about each other’s experiences and intentions in the absence of meaningful interaction”.

I am sincere when I say to you as a Tory, good luck and I hope you can retain your new position until Diwali 2023, though I will not be putting my last dollar on it.

By the way, your performance at your first PMQs was poor. (that’s better than Liz, hers were pathetic). You may be a pious Hindu on the outside, let’s see how that manifests itself in real “Dharma Delivery”

Let me know what you think in the comments below 👇

Suneil Sharma

27^th October 2022