PMQs Sketch: Rishi and all his (non) Doms
If you were to traipse through Rishi Sunak’s nightmares for a night or two, it would be a conga line of Doms coming and going.
First there’s Dom Cummings slagging him off on his substack, then there was Dom Raab hurtling tomatoes at him from across the room, and then blaming it on the civil service, and last, there’s a faceless, ephemeral beast simply known as the “non-dom”, promising him money but holding a tight grip over his political soul.
Undoubtedly to try and shirk off it’s seriousness both to Keir Starmer, and his own psyche, he dismissed it simply as the “non dom thing” in Prime Minister’s Questions today.
Starmer, jaded from a week of Mr Whippy jokes after Sunak’s “Sir Softie” jibe, taunted Sunak for being “Mr 24 Taxman”. A new character in politics, Mr 24 Taxman, would probably be cast by a wayward pollster as a psephological competitor to Stevanage Woman.
Rishi, quick on his feet, was ready to remind Starmer of the last time Labour was in government, yelling, “it’s the same old Labour Party, they’re always running out of other people’s money”.
He made a mental note to thank Greg Hands for his daily tweet of that letter from Alistair Darling, even if posting it in a new and novel location had substituted an actual plan to fight for thousands of local election seats.
“The rank hypocrisy of it,” Sunak declared to the Commons, “As we saw last week when it comes to his own special pensions scheme, it’s literally one law for him and a tax rise for everyone else.”
And then, like a ballerina, he pivoted to his favourite schtick of asking Labour for ideas on what they would do on the economy if they were in charge. Oliver Dowden, his new Dom, whipped out a notepad and pen, in case he suggested anything decent.
Typically, Sir Softie held them close to his chest, simply promising people would be better off under Labour.
“Woeful,” Dom Raab hissed from the backbenches, and even Sir Lindsay Hoyle was too scared of him to tell him to go for a tea break.