Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak are casting us adrift on a sea of debt

IF the Tory party did what it says on the tin, then they would be throwing everything they have at the cost-of-living crisis.

If the Tories were — as so widely advertised — now the natural party of the working man and woman, then every effort would be made to help your family during the coming poverty pandemic.

It’s dead simple — Tories should be bringing taxes DOWN.

Cutting VAT on energy bills — that unforgivably and brazenly broken Brexit promise — should have already happened.

The green levies on energy bills imposed by Labour’s Energy Secretary Ed Miliband in 2008 — then retained during 12 years of Tory Prime Ministers! — should be ditched like a stale bacon sandwich.

Stop yakking about net zero and get cracking on fracking.

And — as 50 Tory MPs demand — Rishi Sunak should cut fuel duty in next week’s mini-Budget.

Rishi, Boris and the rest make all the right noises. But do they get it? Do they REALLY get it? Do Boris and Rishi really understand what it is like to wake up in the middle of the night and wonder how you are going to pay next month’s bills? Do these out-of-touch Tory swells appreciate that millions of men and women — all those 2019 Tory voters, all those 2016 Brexit supporters — are teetering on the edge of life-shattering financial ruin?

Do Rishi and Boris understand that many have concluded that running a car is now a rich man’s luxury? Do they understand that many grafters will very soon have to choose between heating their home and feeding their children?

Sadly, despite all the reassuring murmurs, I don’t think they do.

As everything shoots up apart from the value of the Pound in your pockets, I don’t think Boris, Rishi or anyone in this Government has even the faintest inkling of how millions find themselves falling helplessly into the black pit of debt.

This doesn’t mean that the new poor will be rushing off to the clammy embrace of Labour.

It means that most of us now feel ­politically homeless.

Boris Johnson — aided and abetted by the unelectable Jeremy Corbyn — broke the historic link between the Labour Party and its former heartlands.

But Boris has not sealed the deal. The coming poverty pandemic is going to cause real misery to millions of hard-working Brits.

Politically homeless

And if Boris understood the people who gave him his stonking 80-seat majority, he would be slashing taxes today, leaving the green fundamentalism to Greta Thunberg and keeping all those Brexit promises about getting shot of wicked EU taxes on energy bills.

But best not hold your breath.

From Clement Attlee to Tony Blair, my mother was a Labour voter all her life.

My mum was a tribal voter, her allegiance to Labour as unchangeable as the colour of her eyes.

But they don’t make voters like my mum anymore.

As everything shoots up apart from the value of the Pound in your pockets, I don’t think Boris, Rishi or anyone in this Government has even the faintest inkling of how millions find themselves falling helplessly into the black pit of debt.

There will be millions of Brits who voted Conservative at the last election who will not do it again because the Tories did not do enough to help them alleviate financial hardship.

Perhaps some of them will go back to Labour, if they can hold their noses and pretend that the comrades never campaigned to install a chum of Hezbollah, Hamas and the IRA in 10 Downing Street. More likely, they will feel politically homeless — and just stay at home on election day.

One subject is set to dominate our national debate. The poverty pandemic.

You don’t fret about Putin’s nukes when you can’t pay your household bills. You don’t worry about catching a virus when you don’t know how your family will survive the next year.

The cost of living, Boris.

Paying the bills, Rishi.

This 21st Century squeeze, Govey.

If you can’t help our nation with that, then you will discover that we have no further use for you.

Because the British are all floating voters now.

Favourite Catwoman? All of them

ZOE KRAVITZ makes for a convincing Catwoman in The Batman, the latest in a long line of Dark Knight reboots, this one starring Robert Pattinson as the crime-fighter who wears his pants on top of his tights.

Zoe delivers her one-liners — “I’ve got a thing about strays” — with a feline purr. And she looks the part to perfection.

Mind you, I was a big fan of Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman in Batman Returns.

And also Anne Hathaway as Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises. And Halle Berry was a really good Catwoman.

In fact, now I come to think of it, I never saw a Catwoman I didn’t like.

I distinctly recall something stirring in my grey flannel short trousers when Julie Newmar (season one and two) and later Eartha Kitt (final season) played Batman’s purring nemesis back in the Sixties TV series.

The man who is tired of Catwoman is tired of life.

Marina shows mettle

MARINA OVSYANNIKOVA, the Russian journalist who brandished an anti-war sign on live Russian TV, looked as if she had got off lightly.

Marina was fined 30,000 roubles (£215) for “hooliganism”. But she now faces prosecution under new legislation that criminalises anything that discredits the Russian military.

Which could mean 15 years in jail.

One courageous woman has put her liberty at risk, and the happiness of her children in jeopardy, for a few moments of truth.

Marina is being called the bravest woman on television. She is more like the bravest woman in the world.

McKechnie outta here

NERD stopped play at Goodison Park when an eco-protestor tied his neck to a goalpost during Thursday’s Everton v Newcastle match.

It took EIGHT minutes and the mother of all boltcutters to free Louis McKechnie, 21, who was representing Stop Oil, an offshoot of Insulate Britain.

How many of that football crowd do you reckon Louis converted to his cause?

Yes, zero would be my guess too.

No nice way to get oil

IN a perfect world, we would buy all our oil from smiling Dutch persons who are up to date with the latest developments in LGBT rights.

In a better universe, we would purchase our gas from kindly Scandinavians who could define what a woman is without offending anyone.

Sadly, we live in an imperfect world, where the European Union is appalled, shocked and disgusted by Vladimir Putin.

But to paraphrase Robert Palmer — EU are going to have to face it, EU are addicted to Vlad’s gas.

It is unfortunate that Boris shot off to Saudi Arabia to petition Riyadh to keep the oil flowing just as the Saudis embarked on a public execution spree.

More than 80 executions in one day? Never mind, fill her up with super-unleaded, your majesty!

Yes, this is the regime that murdered and chopped up Jamal Khashoggi for the crime of being a journalist who was critical of Saudi Arabia’s government.

But looking on the bright side, at least the Saudis are not threatening to destroy the human race with nuclear weapons.

Boris has been slammed by Labour for going cap-in-hand from dictator to dictator.

Presumably Labour would prefer to be reading The Guardian by candlelight and wearing three jumpers.

After the tsunami hit Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant in 2011, Frau Angela Merkel no longer wanted nuclear power in Germany and believed the answer was cheap gas bought from a Russian psychopath.

Look how well that worked out.

The lesson is that we should not rely on anyone for our energy.

The conclusion is we must be totally self-reliant.

We have to do whatever it takes — renewables, fracking, wind, solar, nuclear, the lot — to keep our lights turned on.

Until that sunny day, we will be in hock to despots.