The UK general election campaign has suffered from a problem that sometimes afflicts my risottos: it lacks soul. You can enliven risotto with black pepper, or herbs or chilli flakes. You can bung in peas, a glug more olive oil, Worcester sauce, grated mousetrap. Still it will be unsatisfying to the tongue until you add stock. Without that steeping of flavour, be it Oxo or your own from last Sunday’s chicken carcass, risotto can lack depth.
The first part of the proceedings had its excitements: from Rishi Sunak’s D-Day goof to Sir Keir Starmer’s Diane Abbott problem. Pollsters have made plenty of noise, and the ITV debate was punchy. Yet the election has no theme. What has been missing is God, though not in the sense of pulpit-crafted policies or of par ties courting the Christian vote.
