As Gina Gershon put it in Showgirls, there’s always someone younger and hungrier coming down the stairs after you
Bloodcurdling shrieks from Downing Street, where Boris Johnson recently beheld a most enraging sight in his magic mirror (bespoke handcrafted rattan, Soane, price on application). Instead of responding to his daily question “Who is the most popular of all?” by reflecting Johnson’s own smirking visage back at him, the looking-glass has been displaying the image of young Rishi Sunak riding his Peloton bike right up in the prime ministerial grill.
Shortly after Johnson appointed Sunak, his relations with the new chancellor were described as “hand in glove”. Unfortunately, Rishi now seems to have tired of the cavity search. The recent leak of his letter challenging Johnson on Covid travel restrictions has enraged the boss whose entire career has been characterised by exactly this type of posturing disloyalty. Amusingly, it seems the prime minister never even saw the supposedly private letter from his chancellor before it was leaked, with Johnson’s defenders saying it should obviously have been put in his red box. Yet even that feels debatable. Hard to say where the best place to put a document you really need the PM to read is. Tinder? Certainly he is said to swipe left on most work-related things placed in front of him.
