Back in my distant childhood there was a kids TV show called the Five O'clock Club. It was also the time for school detention, and we used to hum the theme tune trooping into it much to the annoyance of the teacher in charge.
Rishi Sunak is not old enough to have seen the show in its heyday, but perhaps he’s found it buried away somewhere on catch-up because the PM does seem to be fixated on the number five.
He’s full of five point plans, five tests by which to judge his premiership and five recent cock-ups.
There was the inexplicable snubbing of the Greek prime minister, using carbon munching planes and helicopters when trains were equally handy, getting into bed (metaphorically speaking) with far right Italian PM Giorgia Meloni, failing to clinch an “oven ready” trade deal with President Biden and ripping his party apart over stubbornly refusing to ditch the Rwanda deal.
WATCH HERE: Sunak's message to the British Armed forces
The PM was not too keen on getting into the nitty-gritty of any of these when political journalists joined him for end of term drinks in No10 this week. Sunak stuck to seasonal gags instead.
His Christmas carols this year will be Away in Star Chamber and O Come Tory Faithful. And he has warned his daughters that anyone climbing down the chimney at their Richmond, Yorks home is more likely be a Greenpeace protestor than Santa. Hope he also told them in the spirit of goodwill to leave some mince pies out in either event.
Sunak announced the five tests for his Government at the beginning of January and promised to have them ticked off by now. Let’s give him marks out of ten and see whether he deserves a gold star or detention.
The easiest one was to halve inflation which in fairness happened - from 11.1 per cent this time last year to 3.9 per cent today, just a smidgen above the Office of Budget Responsibility forecast of 3.8 per cent.
POLITICS LATEST:
Rishi SunakPAWe're still some way off the comfortable target of two per cent, and Sunak cannot claim it's the result of his own brilliant homework because it’s down to interest rates going up.
That’s solely due to the Bank of England which is independent of Government. The best that can be said of the PM is that he did not make inflation worse. But let’s be generous and give him two marks anyway.
The PM promised to grow the economy. He has, but only by a measly 0.5 per cent narrowly avoiding recession. So one mark for that.
There was the pledge to reduce debt, which the PM claims to have done. But it all depends on which figures are used and the experts are not impressed with the ones he chose.
Migrant boat crossings to England have continued on a huge scale in 2023.PABen Zaranko, senior research economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, told Bloomberg: “It’s not accurate to say that debt is falling. Public sector debt is currently rising in cash terms, real terms, and, most importantly, as a percent of national income.” Ok, Mr Sunak, as it’s Christmas we’ll give you a point for chutzpah.
The fourth pledge was to get NHS waiting lists down. No need to spend too long on this part of the exam. In January there were 7.21 million people waiting for treatment. Now it’s nearly eight million. Abysmal effort Sunak. This student does not seem to have the remotest grasp of the subject. Zero marks.
And finally there was that reckless promise to stop the boats. How’s that going young Sunak? The target was no Channel crossings by Christmas. And so far 29,000 asylum seekers have landed on our shores.
A third fewer than last year, granted, thanks to a returns deal with Albania and lousy weather. But that’s not like, er, no boats. And the chances of any migrants boarding a flight to Rwanda will be as far away this New Year as they were at the last.
Meanwhile the PM has broken every rule in the political book which just goes to show what a hopeless politician he is.
My political guide for duffers says a policy is a non-starter if it causes chaos in your own party, threatens the constitutional position of the judiciary, cannot be signed off by the civil service as value for money, puts the UK at odds with international law, and fails to act as a deterrent.
That’s not a five point plan, that’s a five ingredient stewpot for disaster. So no points there. Which makes a grand total of four out of ten for the year's coursework. It’s the five o’clock detention for you, lad.
The original TV show featured puppets Fred Barker and Ollie Beak and no prizes for guessing what sort of animals they were.
But how apt for a government that has gone to the dogs and, as things stand, whose hope of reelection is one for the birds.
