Former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has confirmed that he remains contractually obligated to attend Prime Minister’s Questions every Wednesday at noon, despite the fact that someone else now answers the questions and sits in what he still thinks of as his chair.
The revelation came during a constituency surgery in Richmond, where Sunak explained to a confused pensioner that his employment contract as an MP contains no clause permitting absence simply because attending has become what he described as “spiritually corrosive on a level I lack the vocabulary to articulate”.
“People assume you can just stop coming once you’ve been removed from high office, but parliamentary convention is quite clear,” Sunak told the pensioner, who had actually come in to discuss potholes. “I have to be there. I have to sit three rows back. I have to watch someone else do the job while backbenchers who used to seek my approval now avoid eye contact.”
The former Prime Minister went on to detail the specific horrors of his new routine, including the walk to his new seat, which takes him directly past his old one, and the awkward moment each week when the Speaker calls for questions and Sunak experiences what he calls “a Pavlovian half-stand” before remembering.
“The human psyche was not designed to attend a meeting where you once ran the meeting but now just sit there. It’s like being demoted to guest at your own funeral, except the funeral happens weekly and you have to make small talk with the mourners.”
Parliamentary officials have confirmed that attendance records are kept and that Sunak’s presence is noted each week by the same clerk who used to prepare his briefing folders, a duty the clerk apparently performs with what Sunak describes as “unnecessary eye contact”.
Labour MP Jennifer Holloway, who sits two seats away from Sunak on the opposition benches, said the atmosphere has become increasingly uncomfortable. “He brings a Tesco meal deal every week now, which feels pointed somehow. Last Wednesday it was the chicken triple, which he ate very slowly during a question about NHS waiting times. We can all hear the crisps.”
The former Prime Minister has reportedly requested a transfer to a select committee, any select committee, but was informed that Welsh Affairs already has its full complement of members trying to avoid the main chamber.
Sunak’s predecessor but one, Boris Johnson, offered advice via a Telegraph column written from what he described as “a lucrative distance from that whole nightmare”. His column did not appear to contain any actual advice, but did run to two thousand words and included three references to classical antiquity.
A spokesman for the current Prime Minister said they had no comment on Mr Sunak’s attendance record, but confirmed that the PM’s team had changed the cushions on the frontbench “for hygiene reasons and absolutely no other reason whatsoever”.