‘Sunak is a decent, intelligent person without a scintilla of political nous’

Well, I certainly didn’t see that coming. I had 14 November in the diary for the election because it seemed obvious things were getting better in terms of inflation, interest rates and thus mortgage rates and that there would be time between now and then for the Tories to start asking questions of Labour and Reform voters as to why they believe electing a party that will inevitably have no answers except raising tax and nationalisation makes any logical sense.

It underlines what has become increasingly clear in recent months. Our prime minister is a decent, honourable, super intelligent, hard-working person without a scintilla of political nous. Why when there’s a perfectly decent studio in No 10 from where he could have addressed the nation did he choose instead to stand in the pouring rain, with the canned music blaring at him from the gates of Downing Street? Did no one inside advise him? There are literally hundreds of staff in No 10, yet none had the wit to tell him he was going to look very foolish getting drowned.

It gets worse. Apparently, he had asked the King to dissolve parliament before he told his cabinet he had done so. They were faced with a done deal. I know many were unhappy but were forced to accept it was out of their hands. Having assumed they would be in office until the end of the summer, they faced not even being an MP within a week.

Imagine that happening in your own life. It’s actually very difficult to wrap up all the loose ends in such a short time and far worse, with a record number of Tory MPs having already announced they were standing down and several more doing so in the few days after the shock announcement, it meant the party has literally a few days to ensure that the next crop of Tory candidates are both proper Tories, skeleton free and can walk and chew gum at the same time.

Some of these seats are very winnable even on 4 July, so the winners could still be in office in 30 years’ time. Only time will tell how successful the party will be. But given how useless Central Office were over the selection of a London mayoral candidate, I’m not holding out much hope.

My prediction is a Labour majority of around 100. No surprise there, but I also predict this will be a one-term government for the very simple reason that so far, all Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have had to do is tell the world how useless, incompetent, venal, corrupt, call it what you will, the Tories are. And given the party’s performance over nearly 14 years, five prime ministers, including two in Johnson and Truss who should never have been elected, the infighting, the ludicrously massive turnover in ministerial appointments, the lack of progress on so many issues, fair comment.

But not spoken about by Labour is a once-in-a-century pandemic, a fighting war in Europe and a ludicrous decision by the bank of England to raise rates when people were already facing massive increases in energy and food prices, all of which Labour accepted and tacitly supported.

When they take office, it will not be like 1997 when the coffers were full thanks to Ken Clarke’s stint as Chancellor and Blair was in his pomp. This time round, there simply are no easy answers. It won’t take long for voters to conclude that this lot are as bad as the last lot and given Labour’s penchant for tax rises and bigger government, perhaps even worse.

I can’t say I’m looking forward to the next five years because I know they’ll come gunning for more tax on the middle classes. All I do know is there’ll certainly be plenty to write about.