Viewpoint: Politicians trying to return to centre stage

 

So Rishi Sunak has managed to survive over 100 days in office. Now by itself, that doesn't seem like anything worth talking about, but let's remember that his predecessor, Liz Truss, didn't even make it to 50 days in office.

However, the longer his tenure in number 10 goes on, the more it looks like the same kind of shenanigans that we saw during Boris Johnson's time in office, and considering that Rishi Sunak has been talking up restoring trust in British Politics, his current situation with scandals are making those sound like empty, hollow words.

The whole situation with Nadhim Zawahi's taxes shot a rather nasty hole in his rhetoric, but the current bullying accusations against Deputy PM Dominic Raab is making the whole situation worse, and with both Boris Johnson and Liz Truss looking to return to centre stage of the political theatre, it's getting harder and harder to see just how long Sunak will be able to withstand the kind of pressure that caused both Johnson and Truss to be forced from centre stage by the long hook of political Vaudeville. You know the ones. When some variety act was out on stage too long in the old Vaudeville days, an incredibly long hook would suddenly appear from off stage, hook around the performer, and they'd be pulled off stage to bring their act to an early and ignominious end.

But now we have both Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, both of whom were pulled off stage by politics's own version, now trying to return to centre stage and reclaim some spotlight for themselves. At one time, if you were pulled off stage by the long hook of political theatre, you retired from centre stage gracefully, and those that avoided it saw it coming and made their own exit before they got pulled.

Now it seems the hook has a new target. Rishi Sunak, and it seems that both Boris Johnson and Liz Truss are trying to use it to force Sunak off stage, whilst at the same time making it seem like they are the best choices to replace him.

The thing is though, we're all fed up of this ongoing mess of political theatre shenanigans and would prefer a general election to be held, rather than having to watch the Tories go through yet another leadership election, and to be fair, I think there are plenty of Tories within the rank and file who would prefer a general election to the continued shambles that is the Tory party currently.

It's way past time that this political theatre production was shut down, and this current crop of hacks put out to pasture, to make way for a different production that just might be more popular than this one.