Fishy Rishi

There were credible reports of people spontaneously combusting today as the heatwave, however attenuated, continued for a final day. Along with the latest in the ongoing series of the Great Fires of London, the thousands of deaths that were predicted and the never-ending stream of drivel from public health experts such as Sadiq Khan—the Great Liar of London—about what to wear and where to go, I thought the spontaneous combustion one was the one for your intrepid columnist to follow up.

Turns out the whole thing was fake news. People were, indeed, going up in flames but it was nothing to do with the heat. They were self-immolating at the thought of having Rishi Sunak as the next Prime Minister now that the race is down to the two final candidates. I am sure that Liz Truss, who is his opponent and who nobody actually seems to like, would seem like the dream ticket to some people compared with Fishy Rishi. But the Parliamentary Conservative Party have pulled a fast one on the British public by pitting the slick South Asian much beloved of the middle classes (‘he’s really one of us’) against the, surely, unelectable Truss.

Of course, the rest of the Conservative Party membership will be only too aware of this. They will overcome their racial prejudice, their aversion to high spending and high taxes, hold their noses and usher Rishi into number 10. Well, number 11 actually, unless he lets his own choice of Chancer of the Exchequer have the better apartment. After all, Rishi and his missus could probably afford to renovate the whole parliamentary estate and still have money left over for a couple of pairs of £500 loafers.

So, what’s so bad about Rishi? After all, here is the man who gave us half price pizzas in an effort to tempt us back out of our houses and into restaurants after the first Covid lockdown; the ones he and his cronies had closed. He even served some of the pizzas himself. The poor chap is so embarrassingly out of touch he could not see that the vast majority of the public didn’t give a fig about Covid. Round our way, on the night before restrictions were enforced the pubs and restaurants were full to the gunwales. Likewise, the first day after they were lifted. The Eat Out to Help Out was just a gimmick and another manifestation of Sunak’s largesse, with our money.

But Eat Out to Help Out was a drop in the ocean compared with the money thrown into furlough and the scandalous and unaccountable millions thrown into PPE and ventilators; the former mostly got binned and the latter remain in storage. The problem is that the money remains in the bank accounts of the greedy and corrupt friends of friends of government ministers who were permitted to milk our country dry. For a comprehensive exposé read Profits of Doom published by Private Eye. Rishi Sunak presided over this and when he thought the money might run out, he simply printed it, promised it to the future and simultaneously bankrupted generations yet to be born. He cannot deflect the blame to Boris Johnson who he claims was his boss; Boris was never in charge of his marriage let alone Downing Street or the country. To get back to Carrie’s cleavage and her afternoon delights he just stood up at Covid press briefings and said whatever the evil spirits to either side of him told him to say. He only, mercifully, got us out of lockdown madness ahead of most countries because he knew he was caught red-handed partying while the rest of us were banged up at home. Sunak knew what was going on. After all, along with Johnson he was fined for Partygate.  The saddest aspect of that is that the silly bugger doesn’t even drink alcohol. At least Johnson and the rest of the Downing Street divas had some fun.

Now, as we are on the verge of having Rishi Sunak as our Prime Minster, it is worth noting that this is the man who has presided over the highest rise in prices for 40 years. Now that the temperature is dropping, it is likely to be superseded in magnitude by the rate of inflation, hovering as it does just below 10%. By the time he is in office it will be over 10% and he does not seem to have plans to curb spending, only to increase taxes. The sublime comedian Geoff Norcott was once asked if he regretted voting for a Conservative government in the last election. He replied that what he regretted was not getting one. In my view, this mega-rich, high-spending and unapologetic globalist could be the most left-wing Prime Minister we have had since Michael Foot. And there’s not a damned thing we can do about it.

Roger Watson is a retired academic, editor and writer. He is a columnist with Unity News Network and writes regularly for a range of conservative journals including The Salisbury Review and The European Conservative. He has travelled and worked extensively in the Far East and the Middle East. He lives in Kingston upon Hull, UK.