With MPs back at Westminster after the hols, hair neatly brushed and shoes nicely polished, the head boy and girl are getting a good ticking off. And the naughty kid having a fag behind the bike sheds is having a good giggle at the pair of them. As our Political Correspondent Peter Spencer reports, the Prime Minister’s on a frantic damage limitation exercise, and the Tory leader can’t fail to have spotted that her time’s running out.
The line from the lovely old song from the musical Oklahoma, ‘everything’s going my way’ could hardly be less applicable for either of them just now, thanks to a combination of bad luck and simply not being very good at their job.
Keir Starmer had been so looking forward to wrestling the news agenda away from Reform leader Nigel Farage’s skilful scooping up of the usual silly season news vacuum by relentlessly stirring up anti-migrant sentiment.
But in the event the spotlight switched back to the government for the worst possible reason. The sleaze scandal swirling over the Deputy PM Angela Rayner’s tax affairs was always going to be a no-win situation, however it played out.
If she was cleared, suspicions would still linger. And if she wasn’t there’d be hell to pay. The rest is history, as are whatever aspirations she might have held of one day getting the top job.
Her departure inevitably left the Prime Minister with at least a bit of a cabinet reshuffle on his hands, as well as, her choice this one, a likely contentious contest for deputy leadership of the Labour party.
In the event, Starmer opted for the major reshuffle that he may have been considering for some time, but decided worth bringing forward in the circs.
Former Foreign now Justice Secretary David Lammy is the new Deputy PM, his old job goes to the ex Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, and the slot she’s vacated goes to Shabana Mahmood.
Captain Hindsight’s always a handy companion, but to most observers Rayner’s downfall had been seen as a foregone conclusion for days.
With that in mind, though it might seem like a sidebar, the Tory leader Kemi Badenoch’s pathetic performance at Prime Minister’s question time last Wednesday turned out to be a particularly knobbly nail in her career coffin.
There she was with an open goal side so wide that she barely even needed to blow on the ball. But instead of beating Starmer to a pulp over the immediate and unfolding crisis she moved swiftly on to the state of the economy.
For sure the nation’s desultory growth figures will make for an awkward reckoning when the time comes. But the budget isn’t until November, for heaven’s sake. The potential implosion right in front of her was happening in real time.
The episode may not have done more than raise a few eyebrows in the press gallery, but it will have served as an enduring reminder to many on her own side that she’s got a bit too much in common with the derided failure Colonel Blimp.
It’s also worth noting in passing that she chose the very week that the Met Office confirmed that we’ve just had the hottest summer ever to nail her colours to the anti climate control mast. Earning the headline: ‘Drill, Kemi, Drill.’
All of which could spur a few more moderate-minded Tory waverers to head off in the direction of the Green party, which has just chosen the firebrand Zack Polansky as its leader.
A former hypnotherapist, he once rather colourfully claimed that women could use the power of their minds to gee up their bra cup sizes. Who knew?
Would be nice to think that Donald Trump could increase his cerebral capacity using the same technique, but that would necessitate having a brain in the first place. Which polls show most Brits think is a questionable proposition.
Among the many possible explanations for the thumbs down this side of The Pond is his largely nonsensical claim to have ended lots of wars.
He’s rather set the lie on that himself by rebranding of the Department of Defense, on his own say-so, as the Department of War.
But there can be little doubt that, also on his personal if clumsily inadvertent say-so, the firmament on which the Free World has sat since the defeat of Hitler has been destabilised.
Witness last week’s seriously scary display of goose-stepping military might in China, and the cast of unsavoury characters puffing out their chests. And consider why they banded together like that.
Yes, the Russian dictator has been in cahoots with the unspeakable monster running North Korea for a while now, but Beijing’s decision to up the ante in that way was a direct response to Trump’s cackhandedly belligerent trade policies.
Likewise, most notably, the choice made by the leader of the world’s largest democracy to join forces with these guys.
It happens that the country in question, India, which boasts nuclear weaponry as well as the fourth largest economy on the planet, could just as easily have sided with the West.
But Trump’s meddling in a dispute with neighbouring Pakistan, and claiming incorrectly to have sorted it, so enraged the Indian government that they tilted the other way. Nice one, Donald.
Still, at least he managed a cheery smile when Nigel Farage popped into his office for a photo-op before jetting back to UK for his party’s weekend conference in Birmingham.
Charmingly, the Times ran a best caption competition for the pic. And the winner was: ‘Buy one, get one free.’ Which might yet play well with his own party faithful, but is unlikely to do much for his overall standing.
Cue Keir Starmer, and his lingering hope that someone at the Reform shindig would say something egregiously barmy.
Or that the party’s latest recruit, former Tory cabinet minister Nadine Dorries, would live up to her nickname ‘Mad Nad’, and do something spectacularly silly.
He may also be reflecting sadly on how quickly his own stab at attention seeking flittered into oblivion. He did his best, with a rejig of his top team and, in his own words: ‘Sort of phase two of the government.’
His new objective is, again his words: ‘Delivery, delivery, delivery.’ A clear, if rather more amorphous, echo of Tony Blair’s slogan of yesteryear: ‘Education, education, education.’
The emphasis, and potential impact, is however further diluted by the fact Starmer has now announced no fewer than thirty different priorities since becoming Prime Minister.
Tends to suggest, or rather maybe confirm, that he’s a bit short on what President George Bush used to loosely but pertinently refer to as: ‘The vision thing.’
Ok, Starmer’s government still has up to four years left to get it right, but with his own personal rating at rock bottom and Farage’s Reform still miles ahead in the polls, but you can’t help but feel his pain.
Interestingly, the Guinness Book of Records is marking its seventieth anniversary by listing a number of top spots as yet uncontested.
There’s the most whoopee cushions sat on in one minute, and the speediest four-hundred metre sack race.
But what might ring a bell in Starmer’s possibly rather jaundiced mind is the challenge to make the fastest trip as far up as the top of Mount Everest, on a bicycle.
Though they don’t suggest trying it up the mountain itself, it could well be feeling like just that to poor Sir Keir. Not only on a bike, but with no saddle and two flat tyres thrown in.
Watch Peter’s report at peterspencer.org
Peter Spencer has 40 years experience as a Political Correspondent in Westminster, working with London Broadcasting and Sky News. For more of his fascinating musings on the turbulent political landscape, follow him on Facebook & Twitter.