Second Choice Sunak

If only my empathy could override my outrage I might feel for the bloke but it can’t and I don’t. What must it be though to be Rishi Sunak? A man who for all his privilege, wealth, and sense of entitlement lives daily with the knowledge that he came second. Not only that, but he came second to Liz Truss, universally recognised as the worst prime minister to ever guide this sceptred isle.

When it comes to how we define ourselves, you don’t need to turn to, say, Tversky and Kahneman, two of the greatest psychologists of the past 50 years for an exposition on Prospect and Framing theory, you could just as easily ask Dear Abby or Marge Proops. They would all agree that we tend to define ourselves by the benchmarks we set. One of these benchmarks is how we measure up against others.

Not necessarily a one-dimensional measurement as it balances the value we place on and the expectations we have of both ourselves and others. We have all been there as kids. The two team captains of football or hockey alternately selecting their teams. The obvious athletes get picked first; no problem. But then, as the selection draws to a close, you realise that the obsequious kid with the snotty nose who everybody bullies has got selected before you: the humiliation is too great. So too with personal relationships. If my partner waved me goodbye one day on her way to go live with, say, Brad Pitt or Harry Belafonte, sure I’d be miffed but ultimately I’d shrug and get on with it, you could hardly blame her could you? If however, she left me for Elmer Fudd, or even worse, Nigel Farage, I would be devastated. No amount of therapy would soothe my self-esteem, and not even weekly wheelbarrow deliveries of Viagra could rebuild my sexual ego.

So it is with Rishi Sunak. Okay, give a little credit where it is due. For all his deafening lack of insight, the self-knowledge that he is indeed, Second Choice Sunak, has undoubtedly broken through. His bland reassurances, unguarded snigger, facile smile and glib optimism betray the fragile defences employed to keep at bay this terrible reality

Rishi Sunak will not be remembered for any transformative or legislative triumph, nor indeed will he be remembered as being the first UK PM of South Asian heritage. Or the richest PM in history. Even his catastrophic (Dr Death) “Eat out to help out” policy, which contributed to tens of thousands of deaths during the pandemic, won’t be foremost in people’s minds, instead what people and history will remember Sunak for is, first, the shortness of his trousers, secondly, his screechy tetchiness, and thirdly, the most evocative of all memories will be that he came second to Liz Truss…Liz Truss! Second Choice Sunak

And now: because laughter is the best medicine a joke (although an immediate general election would be more curative)… which like the current UK cabinet, has been recycled to exhaustion

The Prime Minister went to a (very expensive private) doctor

R.S.:  Doctor Doctor, the chancellor keeps telling me a leaf is growing out of my bottom

Dr:    Jump up there and I’ll take a look

          Erm, Oh dear it seems to be a lettuce.

R.S.:  Is that serious?

Dr:     Well it is just the tip of an iceberg,  (Boom! Boom!) But it could be worse, if it was Liz Truss you’d never pass it.