Sarah Ingham is author of The Military Covenant: its impact on civil-military relations in Britain.
The blue shoots of a Conservative recovery have suddenly appeared. A series of unlinked events over the past fortnight are the seeds of a turnaround in the Party’s fortunes.
Uxbridge was a huge victory determined by the narrowest of margins. It was achieved by the excellent Steve Tuckwell, a determined ground campaign, and Labour’s Ultra Low Emission Zone extension. If anyone needs a preview of a Starmer-led government, look no further than the administration of Sadiq Khan, with all its empty pieties and incompetent bossiness.
If nothing else, victory in Uxbridge has put a stake through the heart of Boris Johnson’s political career. Defeat? The crowing of his fanboys (and ageing fangirls) would still be filling our ears, along with their demands for the return of the world king=over-the-water. Thankfully, the voters of UB8 and HA4 spared the Conservative Party this nightmare.
While the five councils which lost the High Court appeal against the ULEZ extension last week were disappointed, Labour must be gutted by its win. It is now lumbered with a tax hitting poorest folk hardest.
Compared with a few decades ago, London’s air is like that found in the Swiss Alps, thanks to emissions-cutting vehicle technology; ULEZ has nothing to do with particulate pollution, but everything to do with Khan’s inability to balance the books.
Voters’ rejection of ULEZ, like their loathing of LTNs in Bristol and elsewhere and the cancellation of the 15-minute city proposal in Canterbury, is putting a brake on the hurtle to Net Zero. The penny – or the £13,000 average cost of installing an air source heat pump – seems to be dropping that the target is financially unsustainable.
It is time to stop paying such slavish attention to the green grifters of doom, who are taxpayer’ subsidy junkies with a saviour complex. Heed instead Tony Blair, who suggests China is hardly pulling its carbon-heavy weight, and a recent YouGov poll for The Sun. It found that 62 per cent of those surveyed agreed that ministers should prioritise keeping prices down ahead of reaching Net Zero.
In his motorist-friendly Sunday Telegraph interview, Rishi Sunak seems to get it. Meanwhile the LibDem/Green/Labour attitude, reflected by David Lammy MP, is “Let them Drive Teslas”.
For entertainment, the NatWest Group vs Nigel Farage fiasco is beating Barbenheimer. The former MEP has continued to run rings around Coutts, which cancelled him, only to cancel the cancellation on Monday. Never mind stress tests for liquidity, how about for ridicule?
Who is going to be this financial quarter’s Anheuser Busch: Costa (advocates of voluntary mastectomies) or Coutts? Just as the American brewing giant lost billions of dollars after deploying a trans influencer to endorse Bud Light, the bank has panted to keep up with the progressive zeitgeist.
But a debit card “inspired by social and ecological reciprocity” is worthless if your ultra-high net worth clients suspect that you are compiling dodgy dossiers on them; The Lives of Others is a cinematic masterpiece about the impact of surveillance, not a training manual.
Not content with seeing off NatWest Group CEO and her Coutts counterpart, the irrepressible Farage has set up AccountClosed.org to campaign against de-banking, while becoming a scourge of woke capitalism.
Suddenly, the tide is turning on so-called corporate purpose. Companies’ support for social justice is being exposed as a cynical marketing scam; less “be kind” than “gouge the gullible”. And despite trumpeting “diversity”, it is becoming clear that banks are keen to exclude customers if they dislike their politics.
Farage doing the Conservatives’ work – at least someone is.
In recent years, too many Tories have been the appeasers in the culture wars. They have nodded along with the denial of biology (“trans women are women”), the teaching radical critical theory in connection with race and gender in schools, and the Pride-supporting police prioritising hate crime over real crime.
It is unfathomable why any Conservative should dally with beliefs which have their roots in Marxism. They have even less excuse now that Labour is going tepid on trans. Who’s on the wrong side of history now, Sir Keir? (He of “It’s wrong to say ‘only women have a cervix’” and “99.9 per cent of women don’t have a penis.”)
Labour’s confusion over women is compounded by Rachel Reeves giving the impression that sexist bullying caused the downfall of Alison Rose, as if the gossipy boss of NatWest lacked agency. Who cares if the principle of client confidentiality is destroyed, taking down with it the UK’s global reputation for banking excellence? For the Shadow Chancellor, identity appeared to trump all else.
Other blue shoots suggesting a recovery of faith in Conservatism abound: public satisfaction that the Just Stop Oil protestors who blocked Dartmouth Crossing lost their appeal against their prison sentences; Kevin Spacey’s acquittal highlighting that, legally, “innocent until proven guilty” overrides “victim blaming”, which has been in vogue since MeToo got underway in 2017.
Meanwhile beyond the courts this soggy summer mocking claims about global boiling; food inflation coming down, especially for loyalty card holders.
It is up to Conservatives whether these blue shoots bloom or wither. Neglect constituencies like Somerton and Frome, which was effectively without an MP for 15 months, and we deserve to lose them. (On Wednesday, the Prime Minister implied that Nadine Dorries should get off the pot in Mid Beds).
Ill-discipline, egomania and a defeatist mindset among MPs? Better that they get out of the way or we are out of majority government until 2041, if recent history is any guide.
Paddy Power currently gives Labour 3/10 and the Conservatives 7/1 for a majority at the next general election. We have a stellar prime minister, committed activists, and a growing roster of good candidates. The post-pandemic global economy is recovering from two years of dislocation.
Ahead of Uxbridge, Betfair gave odds of 1/25 for a Labour win and 9/1 for a Tory victory. How did you spend your winnings?