DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Rishi can still break Labour’s fragile lead
A new opinion poll showing the fragility of Labour support in key electoral battlegrounds offers the Tories a crumb of comfort after a disastrous 2022.
Over the past 12 months, the Tory Party has given voters precious little reason to believe. A year of coups, crises and constant rebellion has seen its reputation for competence hit rock bottom.
Yet the poll suggests that even at this low point, up to 30 per cent of voters in constituencies Labour hopes to take from the Conservatives are still undecided.
Many fear the prospect of a lurch to the Left, and there is little faith that Sir Keir Starmer would make a better prime minister than Rishi Sunak.
Mr Sunak must champion the bold One Nation Conservatism that delivered a landslide for Boris Johnson in 2019. Pictured: Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and government ministers meet veterans in 10 Downing Street, December 21 2022
Many fear the prospect of a lurch to the Left, and there is little faith that Sir Keir Starmer would make a better prime minister than Rishi Sunak. Pictured:
However, persuading these waverers to vote Tory is a huge task. It will not be achieved by aping Labour tax-and-spend policies in the hope of being seen as some sort of least-worst option.
Mr Sunak must champion the bold One Nation Conservatism that delivered a landslide for Boris Johnson in 2019. He must channel some of his old boss’s energy and optimism to lift the funk of passive defeatism this country seems to have fallen into.
There are chinks of light in the economic gloom. Inflation is falling, oil prices have stabilised and employment remains buoyant. But the NHS, seemingly in a permanent state of crisis, sucks up ever more public money for a declining service, and is in desperate need of reform.
The social care ‘revolution’ has stalled, the asylum system is broken, and Brexit opportunities are still untapped.
Mr Sunak must channel some of his old boss’s energy and optimism to lift the funk of passive defeatism this country seems to have fallen into. Pictured: Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) countries leaders’ meeting on December 19, 2022 in Riga, Latvia
Then there is the vexed question of growth. High taxes and even higher borrowing are strangling economic recovery. Tax policy must be radically rethought.
Also necessary for a speedy return to prosperity, is for white-collar Britain to get off the sofa and back to the office – beginning with Whitehall. Post-Covid indolence is holding Britain back.
On these and many other fronts, Mr Sunak must take the fight to Sir Keir, who is good at carping from the sidelines but brings no fresh thinking to the big issues of the day.
If Rishi can expose Labour’s policy vacuum and convey a confident, hopeful Conservative vision for Britain’s future, he may yet hold on to the keys of his newly redecorated Downing Street home.
Toughen up strike laws
TUC chief Paul Nowak warns of a ‘rolling wave’ of strikes this year. In case he hadn’t noticed, it’s already here.
The rail network will be brought to its knees over the next week. Postal workers, civil servants, NHS staff and bus drivers are planning walkouts, with teachers and fire crews likely to follow suit.
The unions are holding the public to ransom over unaffordable pay demands that would push up inflation and could be covered only by higher taxes or more borrowing.
TUC chief Paul Nowak warns of a ‘rolling wave’ of strikes this year. In case he hadn’t noticed, it’s already here. Pictured: New TUC General Secretary Paul Nowak at TUC Congress House in London, December 2022
If ministers cave in to their blackmail, the wage/price spiral we saw in the 1970s will begin again, making everyone poorer.
They must hold firm and bring in promised new laws mandating unions to maintain a minimum service in key industries during strikes or lose legal protection against damages claims. Other countries have such legislation. Why not the UK?
It would certainly have the support of the public. They have suffered enough.
Victory for compassion
The decision to invite Lady Susan Hussey to the coronation of Charles III shows both compassion and common sense.
Her questioning of a black British charity worker at a palace reception about where she ‘really’ came from was crass and insensitive but not intentionally hurtful.
After decades of loyal service to Queen Elizabeth II, casting 83-year-old Lady Susan permanently into the wilderness would have been both cruel and unfair.
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