Rumours of death

This week: the stench of death still clings to the UK government; some notes on dead US presidents; and a map, made by bus journeys.

In 2016, you probably still just about recall, the remain campaign lost the referendum concerning whether Britain should leave the European Union, and David Cameron resigned. It’s tempting at this point to say that Britain lost the referendum concerning whether Britain should leave the European Union; but I’d have written that in June 2016 when it was definitely at least partly sour grapes that was driving me, so perhaps I’m not to be trusted on such things.

Anyway: Cameron’s replacement Theresa May had also backed remain, and as home secretary had been a senior figure in his government. But she gave a lot of high profile jobs to leavers, and got rid of most of the ministers seen as Cameroons, and sacked George Osborne and then gleefully briefed that she’d done it. And so, even though this was the same party with the same MPs and to a large extent the same ministers, led by a woman who’d held one of the Great Offices of State for the past six years, the May ministry somehow managed to present itself as a whole new government. This was far from the most damaging thing the referendum did to us – but the fact it enabled a government, by then older than the one which in 2003 had helped invade Iraq, to present itself as new was particularly irritating. 

Even more irritating was that, in 2019, it managed to do it again. This time, a man who’d been around the government for nine years, Theresa May’s foreign secretary for two, and had spent much of the previous few months doing his best to prevent May from getting Brexit done, decided to present himself as the head of another entirely new government and the only man who could get Brexit done. Once again, parts of the lobby obediently transcribed this view and presented it to the British people; and the opposition’s attempts to point out that this government had been in power for nine and a half years, and so should probably take at least some of the blame for the mess we were in, fell on deaf ears. 

And then, just as we were losing all hope, they tried this trick again. And it didn’t work. 

The Sunak government is three weeks old, but in distinct contrast to 2016 and 2019 has been given almost no opportunity to present itself as new. The media herd immediately moved to attack the prime minister’s decision to reappoint recently dismissed national security risk Suella Braverman to the role of home secretary. When it turned out she lacked the shame to respond to such pressure, it turned its fire on minister without portfolio Gavin Williamson – who, surprisingly, did have the shame, or, perhaps more likely, didn’t have the allies, and resigned last Tuesday amid a flurry of allegations of bullying.

And then the circus moved on again, this time to Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab, a man so unpleasant to work for that foreign office staff were genuinely pleased to see Liz Truss. Raab is awful, of course (honestly, did you ever see a man more likely to carry a list of the people who called him “nerdbreath” at the age of 14, just in case the opportunity for revenge presents itself?). But the point is, there has been no attempt outside the government to pretend he isn’t. Unlike in 2016, and 2019, the new Prime Minister has been given no chance to reset the clock. 

Perhaps everyone is still genuinely furious about how Boris Johnson behaved during lockdown, and the chancellor who lived next door is too close to be spared from blame. Perhaps the country and its economy is simply too obviously broken. Perhaps the short-lived Truss government broke the spell. 

But I think it’s simpler. Labour’s 30 point polling lead, which parts of the right were comforting themselves could be blamed entirely on Truss and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, has been reduced, by the Sunak bounce, to a mere 20. And that’s before tomorrow’s budget, at which Jeremy Hunt will offer a programme of tax rises (which everyone always hates) and spending cuts (which they specifically hate right now, because everything is falling to bits). This is the high point. 

Courtiers are drawn to power, like moths to a flame. So what does it tell us that no one thinks this government is worth placating?