Regrettably many of us will have been awake a long time today before the latest broadcast round undertaken by the Last Cabinet Minister, Mel Stride. Even so, a Mel Stride appearance during this election has developed a strong flavour of all those mornings in Groundhog Day when Bill Murray’s clock radio lurches into life halfway through I Got You Babe. The dormant voter need only hear the genial work and pensions secretary say “let’s not get too carried away here” to sit bolt upright as the grim reality dawns once more. As the long days have passed, these listeners have worked their way through all the emotions: disbelief, anger, resignation, smash radio, restart cycle. Just hearing that Stride is “joining us after the headlines” or “up next” produces a Pavlovian response: a million-yard stare and the realisation that it is the general election again – it is somehow still the general election – and, indeed, it may always and for ever be the general election.
And yet, to lightly adapt the words that once graced Mario Balotelli’s base layer: “WHY ALWAYS MEL?” Even broadcast interviewers playing the Sonny to Mel’s Cher have begun to ask where the rest of the cabinet are. It’s honestly hard to say. Ladbrokes? I cannot remember a single general election where the cabinet has been so utterly invisible in the national campaign. They may as well be in witness protection.
On Wednesday morning, Sky News duly broached the subject of Mel Stride with Mel Stride, asking: “I just wonder where your cabinet colleagues are? Not even necessarily the top three offices of state under the prime minister … but the broad cabinet hasn’t really been seen during this election campaign, coming out, beating their chests loudly to say we, the cabinet, are proud of the work we’ve done as government under this prime minster. It’s been a bit lacking. Are you surprised how often you’ve been sent out on behalf of the government?”
And with that, it was over to Mel Stride, who strode in Mel-like once again. “Well, I think there’s probably a good reason I’m sent out,” he theorised affably in real time, even though, underneath, his inner monologue must have been screaming: “I know! Tell me about it! Why don’t you ask that disappearing act Steve Barclay where the hell Steve Barclay is, other than trying to save his skin in North East Cambridgeshire and doing absolutely jack shit to help nationally? To be clear: I’ve got a 17,721 majority in Central Devon, and Steve was sitting on 29,993 in 2019. When is it his turn to be the dog in the burning house meme going ‘this is fine’?”
But back to Mel’s outer monologue, which was calmly playing Six Degrees of Mel Stride again to explain why he was, once again, the best man for this unpleasant job: “Much of this election is about tax, and how you’re going to fund tax cuts, which is predominantly, in our case, through controlling the welfare budget. And I’m the secretary of state for work and pensions, and that includes the welfare budget” – we’ll leave it there. But safe to say, name any bonfire-of-the-day and Mel will make the requisite connections to explain why he has yet again been given the job of fighting it live on air.
As for his cabinet colleagues, including pretty much everyone from the deputy prime minister, Oliver Dowden, downwards, are they trapped under something heavy? Where is Dowden? We read that the Conservatives are pouring resources into his constituency – where he is defending a majority of 21,313 – and directing activists to shore it up. Yet as far as the casual observer can see, the deputy PM has done precisely nothing overt to assist the national campaign. Perhaps he is a conscientious objector?
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Elsewhere, Lord Cameron doesn’t even have a majority to defend, yet seems to have put in a single campaign shift with Rishi Sunak last week when they were filmed worrying sheep in north Devon. Unless you count the fallout from Sunak’s D-day skive, in which case Cameron did a shift covertly letting it be known he had tried to get the prime minister to stay in Normandy. Thank you for your service, your lordship.
During the EU referendum, Theresa May was nicknamed “Submarine May” by the Remain campaign she supposedly backed, on account of her invisibility. You might recall that May surfaced in the aftermath of the vote to leave, and contrived a victory for herself. But these days, there is a whole fleet of submarines. Michelle Donelan, Alex Chalk, Richard Holden – the list of stealthily submerged cabinet ministers goes on, in an all-hands-not-on-deck kind of way. Should any of these survive on 4 July and spend so much as three seconds attempting to “shape the future of the Conservative party”, it would really be a bit rich. If anyone’s earned the role of Fortinbras, it is surely – surely! – Mel Stride.