Is Sunak full-fat or semi-skimmed on migration? Worse, he’s liberal ‘almond milk’
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Following the PM’s example, I have refused to attend two work meetings and a tax audit in case someone tries to talk to me about the Elgin Marbles. But while Rishi takes a bold stand against one foreigner, the leader of Greece, eagle-eyes have noticed him letting many others into the country: over 700,000 last year, despite a pledge made by the Tories in 1066 to bring migration down. So, Yvette Cooper draped herself in a Union flag and marched to the Commons to demand an explanation.
But if you think Labour has suddenly become the party of Take Back Control, think again. It was Cooper’s urgent question, yet barely a dozen Labour MPs attended to support her. By contrast, the government benches were packed with Tories furious with their own leader, and barely able to disguise their contempt.
“I am deeply concerned and confused,” said Jonathan Gullis, “because at the weekend I got the Prime Minister saying that migration is too high and needs to come down... the full-fat option.” Then on Monday, at a global investment fair packed with Tory celebs, including Andrew Lloyd Webber and Niall Ferguson (Jim Davidson was probably on the forecourt promoting Monza caravans), Rishi boasted about a competitive new visa programme. So, asked Gullis, is the Cabinet “full-fat, semi-skimmed or skimmed?”
Oh Jonathan, it’s worse than that. These latte liberals drink almond milk. Gullis, elected in 2019, is part of a cohort of populists who joined the Conservative Party under the misapprehension that it was, well, conservative - only for it to go all wet and David Cameron. Now they form a party within a party, casting a contrast with their leaders as stark as the Bash Street Kids vs the Eton Rifles. Here’s Lee Anderson (“Now then, the people of Ashfield have ‘ad enoof!”); Miriam Cates (so long as we keep importing workers, wages won’t rise); and Tom Hunt (“urgent radical action is needed now!”). Jack Brereton claimed that there are some classrooms in Stoke where nearly every child speaks a different language. I bet not one of them is GCSE French.
MPs ‘tempted to join Reform?’
The vanguard’s Karl Marx is the veteran Sir John Hayes, who poured scorn on “guilt ridden bourgeois liberals”. But who will play their Lenin? They lack a clear leader for the contest that will follow the inevitable general election defeat - and many of them will lose their own seats. Could they be tempted to join Reform? I suspect a safer bet is GBNews, where one can speak for England from the comfort of a studio warmed by Nigel Farage’s Gold Coast tan.
If they are uncertain about their careers, imagine how I feel. Unloved and unnoticed.
Here in Westminster, Nigel Evans is the first MP - as he is every November - to send out his Christmas cards, and literally every journalist in the lobby has received one. Except me. Well, I shall get my own back. I shall be sending Nigel the biggest, loudest card possible - on December 24, so he doesn’t have time to reply.
