HENRY DEEDES: Sunak talking tough on immigration is like Mary Berry starring in a slasher film
Rishi Sunak was in fluffy-wuffy mode, the one where his voice goes all soft and nougaty while his eyelashes flutter like My Little Pony.
Time was when this meant he was about to shower the populace with another few billion squid of furlough money.
Yesterday, he was, er, trying to talk tough on immigration.
The Tory tradition when discussing immigration is to come across mean and hard. Norman Tebbit would pound his fists.
Former Home Secretary Priti Patel had the habit of clenching her front teeth together.
Rishi Sunak was in fluffy-wuffy mode, the one where his voice goes all soft and nougaty while his eyelashes flutter like My Little Pony
Yesterday, Sunak was, er, trying to talk tough on immigration
As for her successor, Suella Braverman, she tends to sound as though she’s just commissioned a new winter coat tailored from Dalmatian puppy dog tails.
But the Prime Minister adopts a more caring, sharing manner.
Possibly it’s to deflect from charges that the Conservatives are the Nasty Party.
Or perhaps pure treacle really does course through his veins.
Not that his language was lacking oomph. He spoke of ‘doing the hard yards’ and ‘putting in the elbow grease’ with ‘grit and determination’.
It’s just that he delivered the words in the manner of a mollycoddling nursery teacher.
The effect was rather disconcerting – imagine Cliff Richard reading out the sweary bits from a Bret Easton Ellis novel, or Mary Berry starring in a violent slasher movie.
The setting for the day was the Western Jet Foil and Manston Asylum Centre, where earlier the PM had been out with Border Force officers for a quick zoom around the Channel.
By my reckoning, he did not look entirely comfortable flailing about on the surf out there. Possibly more used to bobbing up and down in the sun-soaked Med aboard a luxury Sunseeker yacht.
He arrived bang on 11am, marching purposefully towards the lectern in a well-worn pair of commando boots which looked suspiciously as though they’d been pilfered from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s wardrobe.
Not that his language was lacking oomph. He spoke of ‘doing the hard yards’ and ‘putting in the elbow grease’ with ‘grit and determination’
He was tieless and in shirt sleeves, presumably to radiate man-of-action vibes.
Mr Sunak’s aim was to convince us that his mission to halt the daily flotilla of illegal boats was firmly on track.
We were told Channel crossings were down 20 per cent over the past year. ‘Our plan is starting to work,’ he announced confidently.
He was good enough to explain the details, albeit in that patronising, Jackanory way of his – where he appears to urge his audience to help him finish his sentences.
The returns deal he’d forged with Albania was a success, he claimed. The number of Albanians arriving here illegally was down by 90 per cent.
‘This is proof that our deterrence strategy can work.
‘When people know that if they come here illegally and they won’t get to stay they….. ST-OP CO-MING!’ he explained.
As for the backlog of asylum application decisions: ‘Numbers show that is down by….. SEVEN-TEEN THOU-SAND.’ My, my. That’s a big number, isn’t it, boys and girls?
Meanwhile, we heard that new centres were opening in Wethersfield and Scampton to accommodate 3,000 asylum seekers – as well as two new offshore vessels which had been acquired to house another thousand.
He referred to them as ‘barges’. So in luxury terms, we’re presumably not exactly talking the Queen Mary here.
When it was time for media questions, it was noticeable how much more authoritative the Prime Minister became.
Suddenly the gluey eyes had gone and the whizzy technocrat had returned, twisting about and prompting reporters with the feverishness of an after-dinner auctioneer. He does, though, maintain this grating habit of starting each sentence with ‘So…’.
Someone suggested he only came down yesterday because bad weather had stopped the boats from sailing in recent days.
‘I can’t control the weather,’ joked the PM. Ah, but he can control the boats?
If not, Sir Keir Starmer might as well start measuring up the Downing Street curtains now.
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