'Elbow-deep in the Number 10 Policy Toilet'

Russell Jones, author of 'The Decade in Tory' and 'Four Chancellors and a Funeral', surveys a chaotic first week of campaigning for the 2024 General Election

Rishi Sunak rolls up his sleeves at a general election campaign event at Supacat Ltd, a defence vehicle manufacturer in Honiton, Devon. 29 May 2024. Photo:Alastair Grant/Associated Press/Alamy

The paradox of modern politics is that the skills required to win an election don’t match those required to run a government. One is a short sprint of empty promises and oversimplification; the other, an exhausting marathon of full in-trays and fastidiousness. Therefore, logic dictates that anybody who makes it to Downing Street must be either an administrative genius or an electioneering marvel.

None of this explains Rishi Sunak.

‘How f***ing incompetent do you have to be to launch a campaign that badly?’ asked Ruth Davidson this week, and boy oh boy does Rishi have an answer. It’s hard to look at him now without thinking he’s the chef from Ratatouille after being abandoned by the rat.

Of course, it's perfectly possible that Keir Starmer is equally lousy at electioneering, but nobody will ever find out because the Tories are so hilariously bad at, y’know, doing politics that Starmer doesn't even need to try. I'm not entirely convinced Labour are campaigning at all. They couldn't be less visible without transforming into Sir Ed Davey.

Davey’s big news of the week wasn’t that he deliberately fell off a paddleboard five times – and who among us can expect more from our leaders? – but rather that he is, it seems, the leader of the LibDems. Until now I wasn’t aware they had a leader. I assumed they just spontaneously erupted, like moss, to fill the tiny gaps between the two main parties.

But back to Sunak, who, only days into the election, already seems to be just going through the motions. By which I mean he’s rummaging in shit. I first supposed he’d rolled up his sleeves as a traditional political signal that he was all about getting things done, but it turns out he’d been groping elbow-deep in the Number 10 policy toilet, from which he plucked his latest masterpiece: people doing public service for one day per month, which is clearly inspired by the late-stage parliamentary career of Nadine Dorries.

In Sunak’s defence, his government has brought back slum housing, food shortages, DIY dentistry, acceptable racism, rickets, and scurvy. So National Service seems like the logical next step on his path to secure victory in the general election of 1947. Although given that his party’s final remaining hope lies in the apathy of younger voters, it’s a pretty bold tactic to present 18-year-olds with an urgent reason to race to the polling station.

Tory policy wonks have been wonkier than usual of late, so ministers spent days without slightest idea how National Service would work. Would it be paid? Would it be compulsory? And – with my eternal thanks to the Telegraph for asking the most pressing question facing the nation – would 10-year-old Prince George have to do it?

You'd think the big concern would be how to fund it, but no, apparently stamping down on £6 billion of tax avoidance is easy and has been easy for the last 14 years. The Tories just … what? Forgot?

They say they're One Nation Conservatives. If so, that nation is The Cayman Islands.

Anyway, for days, banjaxed Tory MPs had to guess what their latest signature policy entails. Anne-Marie Trevelyan suggested parents would be prosecuted if their adult children didn’t join in with the batty thing she’d just dreamed up. Au contraire, said James Cleverly, National Service would be “mandatory”, but there would be “no criminal sanctions” for anybody who decides not to bother, a tactic he’d borrowed from Nadhim Zahawi’s approach to paying tax.

If Sunak hoped the National Service wheeze would transform his electoral prospects, he can mark it down as a rare success, because his prospects transformed from dreadful to terminal. But backing out of the policy is now impossible. His only hope is that something even more calamitous will drive it from the headlines, which is pretty much guaranteed, because he leads the Conservative Party. Or what’s left of it. Almost one quarter of his MPs are standing down. When Sunak launched his surprise election the Tories lacked 150 candidates. After a week of vigorous campaigning, he’s managed to convert that into an even greater shortfall of 191.

Tories scrabbled desperately to fill the vacancies. New faces turned out to be old faeces, helpings from the smorgasbord of odium and banality that had already contrived to be suspended. Bob Stewart, who is legally certified as Not At All Racist, was welcomed back into the party, as was Matt Hancock, the dad from a gravy advert, restored to the Tory fold just in time to be publicly humiliated yet again.

But it doesn't seem to be helping Sunak. For every returning disgrace, three existing Tories have stood down, some in with quite lavish displays of contempt. Lucy Allen performed a stunning 5.9 difficulty-level Defection/Suspension combo, after she began campaigning for Reform, which is something not even Nigel Farage seems prepared to do.

Steve Baker hasn’t officially stood down, but he might as well have, since he’s opted to fly, or maybe fast catamaran to Greece rather than battle to lose his seat. And Michael Gove is leaving public life, which some have described as cowardice in the face of angry voters, but which I personally just find very sad. I have a soft spot for Gove.

Well, I say soft spot. Technically it’s quicksand.

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Russell Jones is the author of two books, The Decade in Tory, and most recently, Four Chancellors and a Funeral. His forthcoming book Tories: The End of an Error, the final volume in the ‘Torygeddon’ Trilogy, is currently crowdfunding on Unbound. His legendary #The Week in Tory threads can be found @RussInCheshire on X/Twitter