Rishi Sunak can still win General Election if he has courage to take on eco mob
MPs return to work after their long summer break with Labour at six-to-one ON to win the next General Election.
It seems certain that decent, thoughtful Rishi Sunak and the tired Tories are about to be left out for history’s bin men.
And there are some huge problems in the PM’s in-tray that he looks unlikely to come even close to solving.
Crime? After 13 years of having the law-and-order party in power, the police have just promised that they will attend the scene of every home burglary. Hurrah!
And after the crimes of murderer Wayne Couzens and rapist David Carrick — both serving police officers — the police have never been so unloved.
The NHS? Incompetent NHS management somehow allowed Lucy Letby, an NHS neonatal nurse, to murder at least seven babies entrusted to her care and attempt to murder six more.
Sixty per cent of all deaths in the UK last year were people waiting for NHS treatment in a queue that is currently 7.4million people long.
Morale among doctors and nurses has never been lower.
Illegal immigration? At an all-time high. The population of a medium-sized city strolls in every year and never leaves.
Nobody even talks about sending illegal immigrants back to the obvious place — France.
Rwanda in Africa is the Government’s unlikely destination of choice.
Illegal immigration has more than tripled since Brexit. How’s that for taking back control?
Nothing works in strike-ravaged, cock-up-prone Britain.
When we learn 104 schools will not open for the new school year because they are falling down, it is not remotely surprising.
And yet, and yet — Rishi Sunak could still win the next election.
He will do it if he finds the courage, the will and the wit to stand up to the fanatics of the new green religion.
After London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s massive expansion of the capital’s Ultra Low Emission Zone, a people’s rebellion against a bullying, incompetent, uncaring establishment has spontaneously erupted.
Does Rishi Sunak have the guts to lead it?
Ulez is adored by the pious working-from-home brigade who can earn a crust tapping laptops without getting out of their jim-jams.
Ulez is despised by parents who want to take their children to school, by self-employed tradesmen who need to drive to make a living, and by low-paid shift workers — cleaners, carers — whose working hours mean they can’t rely on public transport.
GRAFTERS DO CARE
If you have paid your road tax, why should you be fined £12.50 a day to do a day’s graft, or take your child to school?
Khan was very mouthy when the green goons of Just Stop Oil were paralysing London. “A really important pressure group,” he cooed.
Now illegal activism of another kind is coming back to haunt him.
Five hundred Ulez cameras have already been stolen or vandalised, almost 25 per cent of the total number.
Does Rishi Sunak get it? People are sick of having the new green religion stuffed down their throats.
The people who hate Ulez the most are the backbone of this country.
They are struggling with the cost-of-living crisis.
And these grafters and parents do care about environmental issues.
We see the planet getting hotter with every summer.
But people also have to be allowed to feed their families, live their lives and raise their children. Will Rishi Sunak stand up for these folk?
We need a pragmatic approach to the environment that is more nuanced, thoughtful and measured than the green fanatics will ever allow.
Sunak must strike a balance between the world as it is and the world we all want to leave for our children and grandchildren.
Dial down the religious platitudes about Net Zero. Reverse the pledge to ban the sale of all new diesel and petrol cars by 2030 — five years before the EU!
End the stark raving insanity of pretending that even hybrid cars — wicked hybrid cars! — will be banned by 2035.
Stop treating our blameless gas boilers like Satan’s evil spawn. And oh yes — crush Sadiq Khan on Thursday, May 2, 2024, when London chooses its next mayor.
If Sunak can bring common sense and compassion to the environmental debate, he will win the next General Election.
And if he can’t, Rishi and the Tories are toast.
Oliver trumps parties
THE song Rich Men North Of Richmond by Oliver Anthony is the musical phenomenon of the year.
Have a listen – it is moving beyond belief.
It is a protest song, an authentic cry of rage, and Anthony sings of the forgotten American working class.
The Left hate it because while Anthony sings about the plight of low-paid factory workers (good!), he also sings about obese welfare recipients (bad!).
This angry, heartfelt song has been called anti-Biden.
But don’t kid yourself that it is pro-Trump.
“It’s aggravating seeing people on the conservative news try to identify with me, like I’m one of them,” Anthony said after Republican presidential candidates pondered why his song had hit a nerve across America.
The power of Rich Men North Of Richmond is that, like any great protest song, it rises above party politics.
I remember when Republicans tried to claim another protest song – Born In The USA by Bruce Springsteen – as their anthem.
They didn’t get away with that either.
A rank excuse
LADY Victoria Hervey is standing up for her old chum Prince Andrew, who is seen as the rudest of royals.
“I think it’s to do with the military,” excuses Lady Vic. “He’s very abrupt.”
But those who have served – of all ranks – have a default position of unfailing politeness.
Perhaps Andrew has just been spoilt by a life of unimaginable privilege.
His father had a famously sharp tongue but at least Prince Philip was funny with it.
The Queen always had the common touch, unfailingly polite and patient with everyone she met, from heads of state to children bearing bouquets. She made it look easy.
When marriage starts to wear you down
WHEN Justin and Hailey Bieber were in New York for a Krispy Kreme doughnuts event – living the dream, baby – Hailey stepped out looking immaculate in a red minidress while Justin looked as if he got dressed in the dark.
Bemused commentators suggested the couple looked as though they had dressed for different events.
In fact, Hailey’s little red dress would look at home anywhere.
While Justin’s ensemble – yellow Crocs with ankle socks, above-the-knee shorts, pink baseball cap perched on top of grey hoodie – would only look appropriate if he was stranded at an airport.
But that is what can happen after five years of marriage.
Your wardrobes grow apart.
Keir is Don and dusted
FOR the first time in decades, the US and UK elections cycle seem set to align.
Donald Trump could be re-entering the Oval Office just as Keir Starmer measures the curtains in 10 Downing Street.
Reagan and Thatcher, Clinton and Blair, Bush and Blair – there have been some great love matches between American presidents and British Prime Ministers. Trump and Starmer seem unlikely to hit it off.
It would be even worse than having Brit-hating Biden in the White House.
Five years ago, Starmer tweeted: “Humanity and dignity. Two words not understood by Donald Trump.”
Keir’s colleagues have been even ruder.
“A hard-right nasty thug,” Angela Rayner called Trump.
David Lammy led protests against Trump’s 2018 visit and raged about “this President’s divisive politics of hate”.
Remember when the US and UK were going to do a fabulous trade deal?
Best not hold our breath. Trump is notoriously thin-skinned.
Biden may forget what country he is in, but Donald will recall every slight and insult.
THE final series of The Crown starts soon and we are told that there will be no scenes of “anything which could be called intimate” between the actors playing Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed.
Late in the day, the makers of The Crown are touchingly sensitive.
Or perhaps Netflix has just realised that they have one of Diana’s sons on the payroll.
PRINCE HARRY claims that the media ignored wounded British veterans.
It is not true. It is a total inversion of the truth. And it is grotesquely offensive.
“Recollections may vary” doesn’t cover it.
DAVID BOWIE turned down a knighthood. So did Stephen Hawking.
So did John le Carré. Our greatest musician, our greatest scientist, our greatest writer.
Quite a list! So it is pathetic that Sir Keir Starmer doesn’t want too much made of his knighthood because it makes him sound “posh”.
Why didn’t you turn it down, comrade?