Hey There, Rishi, Take The Win
After flailing economic numbers and feckless MPs losing the whip Sunak finally gets the Rwanda bill done only to HiT an own goal.
Sunak or Pochettino. Pochettino or Sunak. I'm trying to figure out who is more screwed today. I mean, to be fair, they were both left intolerable hands to play. One was caught out by the lure of leading one of the best teams of the English Premiere league after bombastic new owners invested billions in a revolutionary, really? new football philosophy called ‘pitting boys against men’. The other was enthusiastically drafted into leading a G7 world power after bombastic PMs had riven it with empty yet soaring oratory and feckless economic bombs. The real bombs disappeared with budget cuts…
I probably don't know enough about football but I think Maurizio is the least likely to fall on his feet in the near future. Oh, wait a minute… He took on a flailing experiment and 8 months later he still has a flailing experiment. As a football manager where do you go when you're stuck flat on your footie-booted feet. Maybe you stay?
Our friend Rishi doesn't have that option though. He's term limited whether June or October his deadline is right around the corner with no relief in sight. He’s losing MPs faster than a bend-it-by-Beckham as they're shown up to be dissolute, weak-willed, morally inept. One finds oneself standing mouth agape in astonishment at the senseless scandalous behaviour they get up to. I mean, really, the Profumo scandal was child's play compared to this current crop of Tory misbehaving. What is going on with them?
You know what they say “culture comes from the very top”. Oh, and “leadership is example”. Fine example.
Poor Sunak. He lost 2 MPs in as many weeks. Which means more Chelsea-v-Arsenal style bury-your-head-in-the-sand by-elections. Unemployment is at a 6 month high of 4.2% , GDP is at 0.3% which at least means the UK is technically out of secret recession. Secret because they ‘just’ got the true numbers in for 2023 4th quarter. Pochettino on the other hand wishes his latest results were a secret.
March inflation was down by 0.3%. Is that better? Well not really enough that anyone notices. Certainly not with such marvellous scandals to distract us. Thanks again William Wragg and Mark Menzies. All those bad people wanting money and phone numbers off them. It seems life’s not a beach/soccer-stadium after all.
We've done a rough count of 13 Tories with the whip suspended under Sunak. I don't know how Tories survived the bubble they must live in while the rest of us cope with this wonderful economic miracle they've provided and wonder when we will be able to get an NHS appointment.
It must have been a moment of great relief, joy even, when Rish finally got the Rwanda bill passed. I bet Sunak hadn't felt that hopeful since winning the Brexit vote…
Immigration prevention is the Tory’s great white whale. The most obvious broken promise in the Brexit bonanza. ‘Take Back Control’ they shouted from the Brexit bus. But hundreds of small boats and more immigration than ever before show up the blue of those words.
With May’s local elections around the corner and the undoubted drubbing by Labour that the entire political and pundit class are sure is in store for the Conservatives, Sunak should enjoy this success. It'll be months before anyone knows if it worked as deterrence but as Biden wisely told Netanyahu - take the win.
Instead Rishi stepped on his win. He boldly went out and declared a war footing for UK defence funding except it just meets the already stated Labour pledge for defence spending. Kinda like Chelsea being brilliant and winning what should be an impossible game and then immediately losing 2 easy ones in a row.
Pochettino got the whole medical team replaced at Chelsea and half the team are on the bench for medical issues. Perhaps he prefers it that way. A scapegoating genius. Sunak is slowly trimming and benching the slackers on his side as well. It's a delicate dance for both of them. And they have to bring everyone else along while they do it. Keeping the fans happy seems to be an impossible ask for Maurizio and equally tough for Sunak. Wins are everything. Humiliating losses are to be avoided at all costs.
Rwanda deterrence would stop those small boats and the £450 million we would pay to Rwanda for the privilege of sending them asylum seekers and then the further £170,000 odd they'd get for each refugee sent could be money well spent. I mean provided the deterrence thing works as planned.
Truss and Johnson are gone and they won't be coming back. Abramowich and Tuchel aren't coming back either. Pochettino is left with Boehly and the fans. Sunak is left with Braverman, the members and threats of Farage joining the Conservative side. They both need to manage those bits. And guess what. That means win more!!!
Whatever they do these are probably their final months in the job. At least they might leave the party and team in better shape then they found it???????
And if, when? the election is lost or the Europa league is a far off dream there'll be countless opportunities open for an ex PM - just look at Osborne and his own Foreign Minister, Lord Cameron. And maybe it will be Barcelona for the unfortunate Pochettino. Well, that's the dream anyway….
Maurizio better get that team working and by that I mean a bit less embarrassing. Not sure we can hope for much more than that for Chelsea. But even try hard Chelsea is a better label then what people are calling the team now. And Sunak, take a victory run around the Rwanda win. Enjoy yourself a bit. It might be your last political hurrah!
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