When the BBC announced its line-up for the Laura Kuenssberg Sunday politics show, there was a large blank beside the Tory part. To be confirmed, it said ominously. Hardly a surprise these days. At the current acceleration rate of attrition, it must be increasingly hard to find a cabinet minister or Conservative backbencher who has definitely decided to stand for election again. On Wednesday, Michael Gove had declared his wholehearted support for Rishi Sunak’s surprise election announcement: two days later he had decided to spend more time with his crack den. That’s our Mikey. On brand to the very last. Saying one thing, doing another. Treachery runs in his veins. Even the prime minister looks as if he isn’t sure whether to fight this election. His body language during the first three days of the campaign has suggested a man yearning for Santa Monica. He only gets out of bed through a misplaced sense of duty. So there was an air of excitement on Sunday morning to see who was going to turn up for the Tories. Come 8.25am, the home secretary walked into the Sky studio. James Cleverly had decided – for now at any rate – that he was still onboard for this week of the campaign. He might as well get his futile gesture in early on. Plenty of time to quietly drop out later. Still. Call it a win for the Tories. Hard to believe, but Jimmy Dimly is something of a catch for the government these days. Obviously he’s not very bright – which of them is? – but he’s tenacious and has an air of confidence that can only come from someone unaware of just how desperate the situation is. He’s also incredibly loyal. A natural born follower. A slightly more charismatic Tom Pursglove. Someone who treats his synaptic disorders with homeopathy. It’s the closest to memory he gets.
Jimmy D was wheeled out for Trevor Phillips on Sky and Laura Kuenssberg on the BBC. Both interviews started with questions on the Tories’ latest gimmick: a return to national service. Truly the idiocracy has excelled itself this time. You can sense the desperation in Tory HQ. SOS! We need a policy to attract Reform voters. Something that will remind the over-80s of VE Day. But save bring back hanging for when the polls get even worse. For reasons best known to themselves, Trevor and Laura insisted on taking national service seriously. Rather than a badly thought through gimmick that would never see the light of day. Private Jimmy Dimly stood to attention. This was the nation’s chance to serve. To make good the divisions the Tories had created in society over the past 14 years with some mandatory volunteering. Rather sweetly, he was totally oblivious to the contradiction. Here’s how it would work. Some 18-year-olds could make up the numbers in the armed forces that the Tories had depleted with a year’s service. Obviously there weren’t enough military personnel to train these new conscripts so they would have to learn to discipline themselves. And those who didn’t fancy killing people could maybe learn to be paramedics or join the police for 25 weekends a year. Unbelievably, Jimmy D managed to say all this with a straight face. Try to think of it this way. Most 18-year-olds are merely criminals in waiting. We all know they are going to be guilty of something sooner or later, so why not punish them in advance. For thought crimes if nothing else. So this way they got their “Community Payback” service in early. Credit in the bank. And the genius of the scheme was that as special constables they would be well placed to arrest themselves. An ingenious way to lower the crime statistics. Talking of which, Laura pulled up the crime figures. Knife crime up 7%, gun crime up 7%, shoplifting up 37% and robbery up 13%. That was all because of Sadiq Khan’s London, Dimly insisted. Er … these are national figures, Kuenssberg pointed out. Jimmy D just ignored her, repeating that this was all London. Most shopkeepers in Tooting had given up trying to get customers to pay for anything. They just had signs saying: “Come and nick what you want.” Nor could you move in Hyde Park without people stabbing one another. You cannot argue with this level of stupidity. Though by now JD was on a roll. The fact that more and more small boats were crossing the Channel was a sign that the Rwanda deterrent was working. Sometimes we all just have to face facts. The home secretary isn’t very good at basic arithmetic. Or anything really. Later on Kuenssberg, we got the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves. A brief oasis of calm and sanity. Laura tried to get her to make some unfunded spending commitments but Reeves stuck closely to her brief. Which was to look normal and to not commit any news. Job pretty much done. Rachel didn’t say anything remotely memorable. She just reminded everyone that the country was in a far worse state than when Labour had come to power in 1997 and people shouldn’t expect miracles. Labour promise to do the basics well. More hospital appointments and more teachers. After that we’ll see where we are. It beats lowering living standards over the course of a parliament. Over on Sky, Phillips looked horrified as Nigel Farage went full-on racist. Not the kind of thing you expect before 10am on a Sunday morning. Every problem the country faced was down to the Muslims. None of them loved this country. They were the worst kind of foreigners. People who didn’t even bother to speak English. Nige has never found a Muslim to whom he could speak. Stuck in traffic? That’s all down to the Muslims. They come over here, have the cheek to buy cars and then clog up our streets. Bringing our towns and cities to a standstill. Waiting for an operation? It’s because Muslims have queue-barged their way to the front. Muslim doctors were prioritising Muslim patients. Farage looked across at Phillips. You lot are OK, I suppose, he shrugged. You West Indians speak English and like cricket. He’s clearly never met a Pakistani or Indian. Yes, West Indians would be allowed to stay, Nige conceded graciously. But Reform was committed to eradicating Muslims from the UK. Trevor tried to remind Nige that he had been responsible for Brexit and that immigration had soared since the referendum. But Nige has never taken responsibility for anything. He’s just an unpleasant gobshite. If this is the Reform message then the election is going to get a lot more toxic yet. The sooner Nige moves to the US the better.