I am writing this piece because there is nothing interesting or more to say about Northern Ireland’s dysfunctional political system and the mediocrity that we have elected and will most certainly elect again.
On the 13th of May Rishi, our esteemed Prime Minister attempted another relaunch with 28 minutes of, what was quite frankly pure unadulterated BS. The BS was delivered at his spiritual home, Policy Exchange where he was a past alumni. The basic pitch of this so-called speech was that, forgive me and the Tory party for the shit show of the last 14 years which included austerity, hollowing out of public services, failure to regulate the water industry creating another shit show. This privatised monopoly has extracted 10’s of billions in the form of dividends and share buybacks to the benefit of Chinese and Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds, who quite frankly don’t care about our water infrastructure. These companies were privatised with no debt and now have debt above 50% of asset value. Then Brexit, which was to turn Britain into Global Britain, has delivered Little Britain and a growth rate of a tiny bit over 1%. Do not judge our record by looking back he says, I have a plan for a better future, for example, cutting National Insurance, which is a £40 billion hole in the budget, sounds like a Lizzy unfunded tax cut.
He tried to sell the narrative that the pain in terms of the cost-of-living crisis being felt by most of the electorate (not him) is not the fault of the Tory Party but Covid and the war in Ukraine. So, if that is the case he is implying that politicians have no agency. Politics is about choices, and he and his Tory cohorts past and present, have just made bad ones, like supporting Brexit and the debacle of Dizzy Lizzie’s budget. Under 14 years of a Tory government in which he has been both Chancellor and Prime Minister, we have seen child poverty rising from 3.6m to 4.3m and to rub salt into this sad failure, he continues to support the two-child benefit cap. The health care system is in crisis, where are the 40 new hospitals? The criminal justice system is in turmoil and councils are going bankrupt. You can imagine that his understanding of the lived experience of others less well-off, runs deep.
Let us examine some of his great ideas for a better future.
Increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP, by culling 70,000 civil servants and then crowed that the Labour Party a party of the workers could not make the same commitment. He described the people who support a faster track to net zero were suffering from an illness he described as “ideological zeal”. In reality, he is suffering from an ailment called “beholden to the fossil fuel industry”, thus underplaying the greatest existential threat to our species. He again described his Rwanda plan as pioneering, what planet is the man on? He implied that the UK invents and that that is true, but produces, not so much. UK manufacturing as a percentage of GDP was 9% in 2010, 8% in 2024, in Germany, it is 19%. Just to remind Sunak, after funding the AstraZeneca covid vaccine, Astra Zeneca is building its new £250m manufacturing facility in Ireland because of Brexit and related supply chain issues. He touted the UK’s success in developing offshore wind but conveniently failed to mention his failure to support the much cheaper onshore wind. This was done, so as not to antagonise his grey, affluent, Shire-living Tory voters. Does he really understand the importance of energy security?
He talked about AI and the opportunities and then said that it could see the loss of up to 40% of all jobs, which is comforting. He ignored the risks of AI to social cohesion and political stability as highlighted by Geoffrey Hinton. He said that AI revolution would have a greater impact than the industrial revolution but said nothing about how this impact would be managed. I suppose a guy who looked into the eyes of Elon Musk as if he were an actor in Breakback Mountain, says it all.
He continues the tout the BS of seizing the freedoms of Brexit. The reality is that Brexit has added billions to the cost of doing business with the EU, supply chain disruption and reduced productivity. A report by Cambridge Econometrics calculates that Brexit has cost the UK economy £140.0 billion in reduced GDP. London, one of the world’s great financial centres has seen 400 firms in banking and finance move to Dublin, Paris and Frankfurt resulting, in 200,000 city jobs disappearing.
Then he started on the usual culture war stuff, pulling out of the European Convention of Human Rights, sex education in schools, and benefit fraud which is insignificant compared to tax evasion and avoidance by his mates. He also says that fringe groups and cancel culture are trying to impose their views on us. What does he exactly mean by us, the richest Prime Minister ever to hold office, Tory donors such as Frank Hester who said Diane Abbott should be shot, Michael Ashcroft, Mohammed Mansour and his other array of non-dom mates. He went after Angela Rayner for an alleged few thousand while he claimed non-dom status for his wife saving £20m out of her estimated £500m fortune. Breaking news, Angela has been vindicated on all counts, by both the police and HMRC. I am sure she is giving Ashcroft and Deputy Tory Party Chairman James, “low life” Daly who reported her to the police, the proverbial one-finger.
Darren McGarvey called this in his great book, The Social Distance Between Us: How Remote Politics Wrecked Britain, you don’t get any more remote than Sunak. He wants to embrace, surveillance capitalism in the form of expanding the use of facial recognition. He used the usual right-wing tropes of extremism, a new patriotism. He described the global displacement of hundreds of millions of people as a new and defining challenge of our age but then cut the foreign aid budget from 0.7% of GDP to 0.5 % and was shamed into going to COP 28. He also said that the triple lock showed his deference to the elderly. In reality, it ensures he continues to get the grey vote. He has been agnostic at best, to the suffering being dealt out by Netanyahu’s IDF to innocent Palestinians this shows his lack of a moral core in the face of human suffering. He highlights a multi-polar dysfunctional world and the new cold war between democracies and authoritarian and illiberal states, well thanks for stating the bloody obvious. He boasts that the reduction in National Insurance will result in an extra £900 in the average person’s pocket. However, the reality is that on average, for every £1 household gain from high-profile cuts to rates of income tax and National Insurance, they lose £2 from the freezes in personal allowances (Institute of Fiscal Studies 2022).
In addition, if the UK electorate gives Rishi any credit for the fall in inflation and possible future rate cuts, you are disconnected from reality. Lower inflation was achieved on the backs of the least well-off, when the Bank of England increased interest rates to almost 6%. This added hundreds of pounds to people’s monthly mortgage repayments, reducing people’s disposable income by up to 20%. Inflation is down but a loaf of bread was £1.08 on Jan 22 today is £ 1.50, an increase of 40%, and the humble potato inflation is still running at 7.9%.
As I write this piece Rishi has called a general election based on some deluded polling that suggests that the Torys can still win because inflation is down to 2.3% and he has “a plan “to repair the cock ups he and his predecessors have overseen. I have never looked forward to a general election so much. Even though Keir does not get me particularly excited about Labour’s agenda, seeing the back of Rishi and his mates in cabinet, will be a blessing to all. Ironically, when he announced the July 4th election in front of the doors of Number 10, it poured on him, possibly divine retribution for the BS he and his cabinet colleagues have poured on the British public. I am sorry to say, that watching Rishi since October 2022 has been torturous, his sincerity is skin-deep as is his integrity. His understanding of economic competence is seen only through the eyes of neoliberalism, which means, small government, free markets, individualism and tax cuts. A man of the people, he is not.
The key decision for Tory voters is simple, continue to support Sunak and a Tory government that on every key performance indicator has failed, embrace “the plan “whatever that is, vote for Reform and Tice who are snake oil salesmen masquerading as a political alternative to the Tories or, give Keir a chance. The answer is, if I must spell it out, you have been living in your very own bubble. Finally, his performances at Prime Minister’s Question Time have been akin to a jumped-up privately educated nob, oh! that’s what he is. Thanks for your service, Rishi and I hope you find your green card.
Suneil Sharma
28th May 2028
The Gob 
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