Just who will be supporting the Tories at these local elections?
Idon’t know anyone who is going to vote Conservative tomorrow. Hell, I don’t even know any Tories who are bothering to vote Conservative tomorrow. Hang on, that’s not strictly true. My friend Rachel says she will be voting for her Tory councillor because “he looks a bit like Nigel Havers and sorted out my hedge problem”. Best not to ask if that’s a double entendre. Angela Rayner might get a bit funny about Tories and bushes.
Pollsters all agree that the Government is going to get a kicking, the only question is: how big will the boot be? Could this be even more brutal than the Brexit-logjam wipeout of May 2019 when Theresa May’s party lost more than 1,300 seats?
Still obsessed with Partygate, much of the media will gleefully attribute any failure to public anger with a corrupt Government that didn’t live by its own rules. My strong sense now is that people have bigger things to worry about. They are fed up of trying to follow who did, or didn’t, enjoy a slice of Victoria sandwich in the Cabinet Room, like some neverending game of Cluedo.
No, if tribal Tories are inclined to sit on our hands and not bother going to the polling station, it is because of this niggling concern: why would you bother voting Conservative if you won’t get Conservatism?
As many readers have pointed out, the Johnson they voted for was Boris not Carrie. Although Mrs Johnson has kept a low profile of late – and long may that continue – it’s telling how many Conservatives say they are voting ABC (Anyone But Carrie). This Green Woke party with its rich person’s breeziness about National Insurance rises and electric bills is anathema to those who were once its most ardent supporters.
I cannot believe that the PM stubbornly sticks to his Net Zero goal at a time when even relatively comfortable families are dreading their doubling direct debits. A staggering 23 per cent of our energy bills basically goes towards subsidising windmills, despite their erratic puff providing only a tiny percentage of our needs.
In a bruising interview yesterday with Susanna Reid on Good Morning Britain, Boris insisted the Government was “doing everything we can to help households with soaring prices”.
Sorry, that simply isn’t true. They could cut the 5 per cent VAT on energy bills and slash the extortionate renewables levy at least until global prices start to come down. Is the PM really so busy burnishing his green legacy, to appease his wife and her posh eco-mates, that he cannot respond to people’s suffering?
Boris has shown exemplary leadership over Putin’s wicked war. Yesterday, he became the first leader to give a speech to the Ukrainian Parliament and announced a further £300million military support package.
While the public has huge sympathy for Ukraine, there are growing questions about why the magic money tree suddenly becomes a denuded twiglet when it comes to bailing out our own struggling families. He’s Churchill abroad, but Boris looks like Scrooge at home.
Meanwhile, the Tories’ traditional strengths turn to dust. According to the latest Yougov poll, only 20 per cent think the Tories are “best at managing the cost of living crisis”. Labour scored 38 per cent with the remaining 26 per cent saying neither.
I reckon many lifelong Tories will be voting None of the Above tomorrow. We have had enough.
“When a regime has been in power too long, when it has fatally exhausted the patience of the people, and when oblivion finally beckons, I am afraid that across the world you can rely on the leaders of that regime to act solely in the interests of selfpreservation, and not in the interests of the electorate.”
Wise words there, from Boris writing in the Telegraph in 2011. Perhaps self-preservation and acting in the interests of the people who voted for you might, you know, be made to coincide? We don’t care if the PM doesn’t know who Lorraine Kelly is. We care very much that he’s forgotten who we are.