It will hopefully go down in history as London’s Wet Wednesday.
The day when Paula Vennells, who trousered £5million as Post Office boss, wept rivers of self-pity in Aldwych over her company’s persecution of loyal workers – and Rishi Sunak’s suit took a drenching in Downing Street as he announced the date of his public execution.
Soaking the rich never felt more pleasing or deserved. I don’t know what the future holds for Vennells, although like the many jailed sub-postmasters, it would be nice to see her defending herself in a courtroom dock.
But I’ve got a good idea of what lies ahead for Sunak and the watching nation over the next six weeks. Babies will be kissed, lies will be told, battle buses will carry slogans promising things they can’t deliver. There will be TV debates so boring you’ll think about switching over to repeats of Mrs Brown’s Boys and leading politicians will stage a “let’s see who can hump the Union Jack the hardest” competition to prove their patriotic credentials.
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PA)
You’ll hear a lot from Keir Starmer about being the son of a toolmaker and a lot of Tories saying he’s unfit for office as he doesn’t know what a woman is. Sunak will play down his vast wealth by posing with a pint of lager and a chip butty in a Grimsby Wetherspoons, his wardrobe shifted from Prada to Primark.
So many Tory MPs will announce they won’t be seeking re-election that Conservative Central Office will have to ring Rentokil to deal with an epidemic of rats leaving a sinking ship – and 20 Reform candidates will stand down after being outed as racists.
After years of declaring Keir Starmer a flip-flopping opportunist and Labour a socialist rabble, Rupert Murdoch will order his newspapers to do a grovelling U-turn so they are seen to be backing the winner.
Nigel Farage will hover on TV like a salivating vulture, waiting to feast on the Tory corpse and welcome the defeated into his own right-wing party. And a man dressed as a lettuce will stand against Liz Truss.
Tory MPs will argue that this rushed election date shows Sunak is a brave gambler who is confident in his message. Labour will say he can’t get the Rwanda planes in the air or offer tax-cut bribes so he’s cutting his losses as he heads for a slaughter.
And July 4 will probably be a slaughter. Meaning every Labour voter who is too young to remember the Great Tory Bloodbath of 1997 could be in for one of the most intoxicating nights of their lives.
Back then, big Tory beasts like David Mellor, Michael Portillo and Malcolm Rifkind were skewered on a red spike, as a Labour landslide ended 18 years of Tory rule.
This time, if the polls are to be believed, it could be any of Jacob Rees-Mogg, Jeremy Hunt, Michael Gove, Grant Shapps, Greg Hands, Penny Mordaunt, Mark Harper, Iain Duncan Smith or Steve Baker facing the public gallows.
Followed by Sunak and his family leaving No10, hopefully with the Benny Hill theme tune blasting out behind the Downing Street gates, as tearful Tory staff and supporters look on, lost, broken and in despair. Which will be apt because, after 14 calamitous years, that is the exact state they will leave the country in.