All for Rwanda?

Reading this analysis of Sunak’s deciding to call the UK general election I was struck by the following:

o, what might have changed between the beginning of March and today that would induce him to take the extraordinary step of calling an election, sooner than he has to, when his party is about 20 points down in the polls?

 

It could be Rwanda. Downing Street may have realised either that it almost certainly will get a plane off the ground before July – thus hopefully banking any benefit to be had from voters seeing the scheme become a reality – or that it definitely won’t, in which case another summer of Channel crossings would risk further corroding the government’s credibility with voters most concerned about immigration.

What is this seeming obsession with Rwanda and the plan to put asylum seekers there? Can anyone tell me does this resonate so seriously with British voters that it would salvage the Tories were it to be passed? Because from this distance it seems almost trivial (whatever the absurdity of the plan in and of itself). The numbers involved, even were it to be implemented are so low, the idea that it would actually deter anyone implausible. Or is this yet another sign of how out of touch the Tories were with functional reality that it loomed so large on their political horizon?

Meanwhile on the election – the piece notes that 150 or so constituencies have yet to select a Tory candidate. And, worse again, it appears that Tory activists and politicians are ‘furious’ at the timing. Well, who wouldn’t be? All in all it looks like a leader – and perhaps a party, that has given up.