I was about to write something political the other day when a baby appeared on the doorstep. The bell rang and there she was, looking quizzical, warming up her smile.

This happens often. Our daughter leaves the granddaughter outside in her seat and goes back to her car for other baby-shaped accoutrements. And whatever I was going to write is put aside.

Instead I sit around watching the baby. She is remarkably all-consuming, but it a beautiful distraction, so I don’t mind at all.

After she has gone, I think about writing, and sometimes tap at the laptop.

There is famously stuffy saying from the writer and literary critic Cyril Connolly. It goes like this: “There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall.”

Connolly died 50 years ago and seems mostly to be remembered for saying that dull thing.

For me having children, and then a grandchild, has been an inspiration rather than a constraint, although blogs have been pushed back, novels left unadvanced (not much “good art” there but I can’t stop, never mind a lack of recent success).

Below is what I was going to write the other day, and now just did. If you don’t like politics, skip to the end for a spot of domestic self-mockery regarding shoes…

I WAS glumly amused, if you can be in such a state, to hear Rishi Sunak say an “anti-maths mindset” was damaging the economy.

Apparently, an inability with figures is costing us untold billions, according to the prime minister – a curiously unexamined number for someone who wants us to sharpen our mathematical skills.

How many billions and just how does a lack of maths cause that apparent loss; and is “growing the economy”, as they all seem to say nowadays, the only remaining ambition in politics?

This is another of those occasions when a prime minister extrapolates an aspect of their own life, such as when Margaret Thatcher used to pretend that living above her father’s grocer’s shop in Grantham somehow taught her to run a country.

Now Sunak seems to be saying: hey, kids – being good at maths made be a multi-millionaire, so give it a go!

The Labour Party has recently been criticised for a digital attack ad smearing Sunak with the accusation that he didn’t believe adults convicted of sexually abusing children should go to prison.

While this may fit the viciously negative style of modern politics, it was unpleasant and didn’t really work.

For such a jibe to hit home, it has to sum up what people are thinking. The Tories scored in 1979 with “Labour isn’t working” and a poster showing a long cue of jobless people (actually Tory activists, as Andrew Rawnsley pointed out in his Observer column the other day). Whether true or not, this chimed with the times.

A later ad depicting Tony Blair with “demon eyes” was just silly and did not hinder his election in 1997. Labour’s attack ad on Sunak seems to fall into that category.

Perhaps Sir Keir Starmer should try some maths lines on his opponent.

“It just doesn’t add up” might be a good slogan. Here’s another: “He only knows about subtraction”.  Or, in the style of a headline, “Sum mistake, surely.”

Of course, when it comes to “growing the economy”, Sunak seems to have been very successful at growing his personal economy, while being a little hazy about the details.

The prime minister’s extreme wealth sets him aside from ordinary life, but also presents a problem for Labour: should they attack or ignore his wealth?

Sunak is so rich he will have many fingers in countless pies. And sometimes the policies/pies he pursues may benefit himself – or his even wealthier wife, Akshata.

A telling example arose recently.

Sunak faced questions over a potential conflict of interest after it emerged a childcare firm part-owned by his wife would benefit from major changes in the budget.

Do they have so much money, so many investments, they can’t possibly remember the details; or does the prime minister believe it’s no business of ours to know?

Here is a great tweet in which a maths expert disparages government efforts to co-op him into Rishi’s maths class…

The government tried to use me in a campaign to defend their policy of forcing all students to study math to 18. Only problems are 1) I don't agree with the policy; 2) I only studied to 16; 3) They couldn't find ANYONE else so they scrapped the campaign. https://t.co/KhpVRHFxnL

— Stephen Follows (@StephenFollows) April 18, 2023

 

WELL, that’ll teach me to air domestic politics in this blog.

My previous thoughts on the correct way to arrange shoes in the hall produced only support for my wife’s view on this matter. While it remains obvious to me that she and you are all “shoe barbarians”, I shall retreat, licking my wounds (but still lining shoes with the toes facing outwards, no matter what everyone else says).