Rishi Sunak never struck us as a gambler but his snap election is an almighty punt

A giant punt

RISHI Sunak never struck us as a gambler, but his snap election is an almighty punt.

With the Tories 20 points behind in some polls, it always seemed likely they would wait for the inflation fall to bed in and make voters feel better off.

Maybe get planes off to Rwanda and watch the small boats stop. See immigration numbers plummet, NHS waits fall further and perhaps announce a new cut to tax or National Insurance.

Instead the PM is betting Britain will see that Labour, bounced into an election in July, has no plan.

That it will be obvious Keir Starmer’s manifesto is as bereft of insight and ideas as Labour’s opposition has been.

That a leader and a party prone to jumping on fashionable ideological bandwagons would jeopardise the hard-won recovery.

And voters might prefer to stick with the devil they know.

As we said, a huge gamble.

The economic backdrop to the PM’s launch was bright — with inflation now down to 2.3 per cent and even the gloomy IMF predicting UK growth will outstrip most of our rivals.

The weather . . . not so much.

Rishi, without an umbrella, was left to soak up a downpour on the steps of No10 — while a Remainiac protester blasted out the New Labour anthem Things Can Only Get Better from a ­portable sound system.

What were police thinking as they allowed this din to drown him out?

Some things simply ARE more important than one man’s right to “protest”.

Things can only get better? The Tories must hope they do in the next six weeks.

Nations’ shame

DOES it not trouble Ireland, Spain and Norway that their foolish recognition of Palestine as a state was greeted with such joy by Hamas?

Israel understandably branded this new status a reward for racist mass murder. And the terrorists agreed, calling it “the direct result of this brave resistance”.

“Resistance” meaning the rape and kidnap of young women and the slaughter of Jewish children.

Who do these three countries hope will one day run this state? Are they assuming Hamas WILL be eradicated? If not, they could return to power . . .

And Western virtue-signallers would have helped create a new Islamist country obsessed with annihilating its neighbours.

Craig’s courage

MPs get a lot of flak, but who could fail to admire the bravery of Craig Mackinlay?

Sepsis cost him his hands and feet last year. Yet the Tory returned to Parliament yesterday, determined to continue representing his Kent voters.

He deserves our respect — and every moment of that moving ovation he received from both sides of the Commons.