The plan is working?

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There is an old joke which says that Marxism is like looking for a black cat in a dark room; Marxism-Leninism is like looking for a black cat in a dark room, only there is no cat; and Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism is like looking for a black cat in a dark room, only there is no cat, but every now and then you shout “I’ve got it, I’ve got it”. It made me wonder whether, deep down, Rishi Sunak is some kind of Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist. He’s following a plan, only there is no plan, but every now and then he shouts, “It’s working, it’s working”.

He recently managed to accuse Labour not only of having no plan, but of voting against everything which his government did to reduce inflation. Given that his government took precisely no action to reduce inflation – in fairness, there was no action it could have taken, since inflation caused by outside shock is outside the control of the government and it was always going to come down again in the end anyway – the idea that Labour could have voted against that action is another of those post-factual elements of modern politics largely imported from the US.

Indeed, most things that happen in the US eventually seem to get repeated here, and that made me wonder if Sunak isn’t missing a trick. To date, Trump has been charged with 91 crimes, and it only seems to send his poll ratings up. And they’re proper crimes too – insurrection, improper retention of top secret documents, fraud and so on. The best poor Rishi has been able to manage is a fine for attending a birthday party and another for undoing his seatbelt in a moving car. The man’s a rank amateur compared to Trump. If he really wants to win, he should start committing some serious crimes. Or maybe he (through an anonymous intermediary known only to the BBC, Sky News and half of Fleet Street, of course) should just encourage the Met to take a closer look at those which might already have been committed, such as the PPE contract awards, or the way in which his wife’s companies seem able to benefit from government policies. Even if he is acquitted, merely being charged with doing something might help his poll ratings, if US experience is anything to go by. ‘Promoting Great British Crime’ – now there’s a catchy slogan to stand on. Much better than repeating ‘The Plan is working’ ad nauseam.