ANDOne can only conclude that some politicians are simply intractable. Their selfishness and self-deception are so deeply rooted that reality never shows through. Meet Robert Jenrick. Exhibit A. He is a worthy successor to Liz Truss as one of the dumbest solipsists one could hope to meet.
After coming in a distant second in last week's televised Q&A, one would have thought Sincere Bob might have taken a day or two to regroup. After all, if the most conservative-friendly audience possible at GB Information doesn't really like you, then most people would reasonably conclude that they have a problem. If you can't connect with the few remaining staunch conservative members, then your chances of attracting the rest of the country are extremely small.
But not our Bob. Just keep doing what Sincere Bob always does. Never a step back for self-reflection. Rather, he assumes that the only reason people don't like him is because they haven't had enough of him. If you shout the same things a little louder, eventually everyone will accept your way of thinking. It never occurs to him for a second that people dislike him precisely because they know him too well.
So Jenrick is at it again. Out and about giving interviews to anyone who gives him airspace. This weekend he was on Radio 4's Westminster Hour, where he insisted that if he became leader of the Conservative Party, he would expect all of his MPs to sign his pledge to leave the European convention on human rights. Anyone who refused could no longer stand as a Conservative MP.
This is a very special kind of genius. We have a Conservative party of just 121 MPs who are ideologically divided, and centrists are wondering if there is any point in living now that James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat have been eliminated from the race. But rather than trying to reach out to MPs and members who feel disenfranchised, Sincere Bob has chosen to double down. He won't sleep until everyone recognizes that he's the craziest person in the room.
To be fair, it's a tough call when you're facing Kemi Badenoch. The thing about Sincere Bob is that it is riddled with inauthenticity. Whatever you say, whatever you do, there is always the suspicion that you don't mean it. But with KemiKaze, you know she's the real deal. Even when he doesn't say or do anything, he radiates madness. There is that detachment in his eyes. A woman without limits. Always ready to go one step further than anyone else in the room.
Not that Kemi would be disqualified from Jenrick's New Model Army, should Sincere Bob end up winning the Conservative leadership. Although he has stated that leaving the ECtHR would be an act of stupidity, he has never hesitated to do something stupid when necessary.
Kemi takes a very pragmatic attitude towards his own idiocy. You can go there when necessary. But for now, Kemi has been ordered by her caregivers to do and say as little as possible. Try to smile and not seem too hostile. She will never be a naturally sweet talker, but this is the best she can get.
Also on a charm offensive is Keir Starmer. After weeks of bad press about free suits and specs, Taylor Swift tickets and the winter fuel subsidy that has overshadowed the positive things his government has done, the Prime Minister is eager to start again.
So on Monday morning we found him in east London with Wes Streeting to announce a new NHS consultation process. The health service was in intensive care and needed to reform or die. Gone are the days of simply pumping more and more cash into a failing system. We were now faced with a new digitalized service that places as much emphasis on prevention as on care.
But there are times when you have to be careful what you wish for. Within hours, the public responded with mockery. Among the suggestions emailed in the consultation document was mandatory euthanasia to remove all those terminally ill people occupying hospital beds by refusing to die in time. Also in play was a plan to take advantage of empty cinemas in the afternoon by offering patients free tickets, rather than letters with appointments that were already expired when they arrived.
My preference would be a ranking of surgeons based on speed rather than results. Surely it is much better to have a surgeon capable of performing a heart transplant in a couple of hours – even if it has a 50% mortality rate – than one who takes eight hours and always does it right.
What we really need is to free up more time in the operating room. That's the only way we're going to eliminate the backlog of waiting lists. After all, it must be worth the risk of having a rushed operation rather than dying on the waiting list. Just a thought.
In the House of Commons, a junior foreign minister, Stephen Doughty, was answering an urgent question about the government's new plan to deport anyone who arrives on the Chagos Islands to St. Helena. This turned out to be one of the most surreal moments of the week's parliamentary calendar.
It was like that, he said. Remember the Rwanda plan: the £600 million or so that was spent sending just four people, who were actually willing to be deported, to Kigali. Well, the Labor Party had also seen the benefits of shelling out a scheme where no one was sent anywhere.
So the government was giving St Helena £6.5 million with the expectation that the island would accept precisely no one. In the last two years, not a single person claiming to be Chagossian has attacked Diego García. Nor was anyone expected in the 18 months before everything Chagos-related became Mauritius's problem. Although if someone showed up, Saint Helena would be paid a lot more.
Labor's Meg Hillier questioned how the government planned to transport people from Chagos to St Helena, given the newly renovated airport is unusable. Doughty gave him a quizzical look. What was the problem? When no one is relocated, transportation is a piece of cake. At that point I realized I should have asked for the £6.5m to do nothing.
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Taking the Lead by John Crace is published by Little, Brown (£18.99). To support The Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Shipping charges may apply.
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A year at Westminster: John Crace, Marina Hyde and Pippa Crerar. On Tuesday 3 December, join Crace, Hyde and Crerar as they look back on a political year like no other, live at London's Barbican and broadcast live globally. Book tickets here or at guardian.reside.
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