Tories’ ‘Employee of the Month’ is on hand to sweep it all under the rug
When the supermarket trolley overturns messily in the aisle, a smart manager will send his politest member of staff to deal with the chaos left behind: spilt milk cartons, smashed jam jars, oranges rolling in all directions, furious shoppers and howling babies. And the Tories’ go-to for exemplary customer service is surely the Chancellor of the Exchequer. We all need a Rishi in our lives. He’s the restaurant’s star waiter, capable of calming down even the shoutiest diner with some empathetic nods and a half-price dessert.
In Cabinet, he specialises in damage limitation. When the solids hit the Vent-axia, you’ll usually find Rishi; shirt starched, floppy quiff Brylcreem’d into submission, flashing his puppy-dog eyes appealingly on the morning broadcast round. But yesterday he faced a two-pronged attack – the double whammy of MPS’ expenses and grim new data showing disappointing GDP growth, figures that television economics editors pored over mercilessly.
“It’s fair to say we are an international laggard in terms of our recovery,” began Sky News numberswhizz Ed Conway. “We’re slower than every other G7 nation.”
Rishi tried to out-wonk the wonk, though with little success. “It’s hard to compare apples and apples on GDP,” he lamented. Despite being... er... the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he pleaded layman’s immunity. “The reality is: nominal, real GDP, how is all this calculated, is a bit technical for normal people.” Conway struggled to contain his irritation behind a rictus grin. “Yeah but we are here to talk about GDP, Chancellor.”
Rishi applied a prim, goody-twoshoes formula to all disagreeable questions about expenses. “We have an independent process that’s set by Parliament that governs all of those things,” he said, when prodded by Faisal Islam, of the BBC. Sometimes he’d try running down the clock Just A Minute style, by talking about what he did want to talk about – red herrings like the Universal Credit taper rate reform and the living wage.
Back on Sky News, Ed Conway’s questions were growing ever-more blunt. “Do you think MPS earn enough?” Rishi looked momentarily uncomfortable, but soon that head boy smile was gleaming once again. “MPS’ pay is set by an independent body.”
The Chancellor’s dilemma was how to just give an inch, but no more – to offer something a bit more Roundhead than the PM’S Cavalier dismissal of reporters, but not enough to imply full-scale civil war in the Tory ranks.
So he went for the safest concession he could find. “I think for us as a government, it’s fair to say that we need to do better than we did last week and we know that.”
It was a masterclass in triangulation, if not the full-throated apology some were hoping for. Perhaps the customer service king had triumphed again. But at any supermarket, however well run, even the “Employee of the Month” is not immune to the sack.