IN his last roll of the dice to save the next General Election, Rishi Sunak has hit on a stunning new tactic – he is coming clean with the British people.
Sunak is the only party leader who has the bottle to declare that the true believers of the new green religion “have not been honest about the costs and the trade-offs of net zero”.
Labour’s Keir Starmer and Tory leaders before Sunak have depicted our nation’s long march to zero carbon emissions by 2050 as a progressive, pain-free walk in a floral-smelling park.
Pull the other one, it’s got bio-degradable bells on.
Think tank Civitas reckons that reaching net zero by 2050 will cost £4.5trillion, around £6,070 a year for every UK household for the next 27 years — the price of a dozen Covid pandemics.
“Morally obscene!” shrieked Green Party MP Caroline Lucas when the Government approved oil extraction from the Rosebank field off the Shetland Islands.
But we will need fossil fuels for decades to come if we are going to avoid sitting in the cold and dark eating clumps of grass.
We either extract these fuels ourselves or we have to import them.
So Sunak’s injection of honesty into the climate debate does not seem morally obscene, Caroline.
It feels like a breath of fresh air.
Sunak has left the sacred 2050 deadline untouched.
But he has realised that most British people care about the end of the week as well as the end of the world.
Because they can’t afford not to.
We are, absurdly, one of the few nations in the world where reaching net zero by 2050 is LEGALLY BINDING.
The major polluters of planet Earth — China, the USA, India, Russia — have no such legally binding commitment.
So Sunak’s honesty is long overdue.
Hard choices
And it is not just on environmental issues where Sunak’s government is coming clean.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman just put a figure on the number of people who qualify for asylum in the UK under the current UN Refugee Convention — 780million, which will be a bit of a squeeze.
“I am the child of immigrants,” said Braverman, whose parents came here from Kenya and Mauritius in the Sixties.
“It is no betrayal of my parents’ story to say immigration must be controlled.”
It is not remotely racist to point out that this country cannot give a home to everyone who would love to live here. It is the sad fact.
There is zero evidence that Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer has the appetite to face the hard choices of our time.
Sunak says a woman doesn’t have a penis, Starmer would never utter such a sacrilege.
Starmer will never tell you that we can’t get to net zero without considerable pain.
Starmer has no will to suggest that we can’t possibly give a British home to everyone who wants one.
And don’t mention the EU!
Instead, Starmer gets tough on private schools.
Oooh, he’s such a firebrand!
This is the difference between Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer now.
Rishi increasingly finds the courage to voice truths that are not always easy to hear.
But from reaching net zero to controlling our borders to whether a woman can have a willy, cowardly Keir always takes the easy way out.
A CHOC TO THE SYSTEM
IF your chocolate bar seems a bit smaller than it used to be, it is.
Chocolate giants Mars have shrunk their Galaxy bar from 110g to 100g.
“Again?” howled one social media user.
“There’ll be more chocolate in a Galaxy from a Celebrations box than the actual bar before long.”
Mars is not the only one.
The Cadbury Dairy Milk sharing bar has a bit less to share these days, while bags of Buttons also have that shrinking feeling – the contents reduced by almost a quarter.
You see this shrinkflation everywhere.
I just had some chicken satay that was more stick than chick.
And last weekend I had a portion of scrambled eggs that was invisible to the naked eye.
But looking on the bright side, perhaps shrinkflation is the cure for our obesity crisis.
GLORY GONE FOR B.A.
BRITISH Airways used the slogan “The World’s Favourite Airline” between 1983 and 2001 – and for a lot of those years it was true.
But the BA pilot who thought a cocaine-fuelled night on the tiles was suitable preparation for flying 430 passengers from South Africa to the UK shows how low BA has sunk.
Mike Beaton boasted at some length about snorting coke off a lady’s bare breasts. He is finished.
But the problems of BA go beyond one idiot who was prepared to put hundreds of lives at risk for a night out.
British Airways was once the epitome of professionalism.
Not any more. Too often BA gives the impression that it is being run for the benefit of its staff, rather than its passengers.
The World’s Favourite Airline?
How long ago it seems.
IN what world does GB News presenter Laurence Fox imagine that it is acceptable to dismiss anyone with the words: “Who would want to shag that?”
Fox’s rant about political correspondent Ava Evans was woman-hating made flesh.
His snickering exchange with Dan Wootton echoed Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross cackling about Brand sleeping with Andrew Sachs’ granddaughter.
Middle-aged men, eh? Pathetic creatures.
There is no reason why Fox should ever appear on British television again.
Because who would want to watch that?
Golden girls are still running the show
SUPERMODELS of a certain age grace the latest pages of Vanity Fair.
They include Iman, 68, Helena Christensen, 54, Cindy Crawford, 57 and Naomi Campbell, 53.
Who could possibly object?
Apart from all those anonymous 19 and 20-year-old models who must wonder when this golden generation is ever going to gracefully retire from the scene and collect their Freedom Pass.
My guess . . . never!
IT’S live TV and perhaps that is why Good Morning Britain has an endless capacity to make you choke on your Coco Pops.
Two weeks ago, loveable Love Island boxer Tommy Fury was making lurid predictions about putting his next opponent in hospital – to the obvious discomfort of Kate Garraway.
This week, soap star Debbie Arnold was discussing if Dame Joan Collins, 90, is still a sex symbol.
“If you had sex with Joan,” suggested Debbie, “she’d fall to pieces.”
Everyone watching was suitably outraged.
Apart from, I’m guessing, Joan Collins herself.
I can imagine Joan raising one wry eyebrow and purring: “But, darling – what a way to go!”
IGNORE TROLLS, KATE
KATE Beckinsale has nearly six million followers on Instagram. It is easy to understand why.
This week she did a lovely post about her family’s Burmese heritage, tracing back that fabulous face across five generations, including her late dad, the irreplaceable Richard Beckinsale.
But Kate’s Instagram page is marred by what she calls “constant f***wittery and bullying”.
Trolls write nasty things. “Have you had a nose job?” “Why don’t you get a man your own age?” “The photo angle makes you seem six feet tall. In reality it’s more like five feet.”
And the thing is, Kate responds. Kate takes the bait. Kate “hits back at claims”.
And it is quite distressing to see Kate engaging with these spiteful idiots, even if she always gives as good as she gets, even if it is heartening to see that she will take on any one.
Get a man her own age?
“I don’t want a man at all, thanks,” sniffs Kate.
I wish Kate would blank the trolls.
I can’t imagine, say, Raquel Welch responding to her critics.
Or Sophia Loren biting back at someone who dared question her appearance.
Marilyn Monroe never had to deal with an army of anonymous bullies. Why should Kate?
But that is the nature of the social media beast.
We are all connected to everyone now. Even the people who we would cross the road to avoid.
KNIVES NO-WIN
AFTER the fatal stabbing of 15-year-old Elianne Andam in Croydon, London Mayor Sadiq Khan faces criticism for doing nothing to tackle the capital’s knife crime.
Fair enough. Khan has been more interested in milking motorists with his despised Ulez tax than in stemming the plague of knife violence.
But London had a Tory mayor from 2008 to 2016 – Boris Johnson.
And when it comes to knife crime, does anyone really believe that Boris did any better than Khan is doing now?
Knife crime is not a party political issue. It is a national tragedy.