‘Vote for meeeeee ….’

 

 

The race of the wannabe PMs has now officially started. Yesterday’s deadline saw the first cull. All those not endorsed by 20 MPs were relegated. One of them was Mr Javid. Phew. Now there are eight left: Sunak, Mordaunt, Truss, Tugendhat, Hunt, Badenoch, Braverman and Zahawi. 

Today, they must gain 30 votes, else they’re out. The poor things need to garner those votes, to be handed in from 13.30 to 17.00 today (link). More voting and elimination rounds will take place in the coming days so that by the end of next week there are only two standing for whom the party members will vote. Oh yes – there will be two TV debates, one on Sunday 17 July on ITV at 7pm, the other on Monday 18 July on Sky News.

I don’t need to emphasise the utter idiocy of having those wannabe MPs ‘debate’ on telly when none of us can vote for them. I for one won’t be writing to the local Tory Party in my constituency, urging them to vote for this or that candidate. Sadly, this ‘race’ will be the main theme for the Westminster MSM for the next week. By next Thursday there will be only two candidates standing, just in time for the start of the HoC’s ‘summer holidays’.

A taste of things to come are in this morning’s print papers, screeching about ‘Rishi’ and ‘Fight Rishi’, with the obligatory wail regarding the horrific consequences of today’s terrible ‘heat’, all nicely compiled in the usual place (link). Also a taste of things to come are the reports of endorsements by Tory Grandees and cabinet ministers for certain candidates. ‘Knives are out’ writes the DM (link) while The Times has more juicy details:

“Rees-Mogg and Dorries mounted highly personal attacks on Sunak and his campaign yesterday. Rees-Mogg accused him of damaging the economy and plotting to remove Johnson from office for more than six months while he was in government. Dorries claimed that Sunak was deploying “dirty tricks” by lending votes to the former health secretary Jeremy Hunt in an attempt to stop Truss from reaching the final two. She said that Sir Gavin Williamson, the former chief whip who is backing Sunak, was behind the plans. The claims were strongly denied by Sunak’s campaign, Williamson and Hunt.” (link, paywalled)

So they’re not supporting ‘ready Rishi ‘then … On the other hand, or rather: side, there’s the Rishi Campaign, supported by the DT. The top photo of the online edition at the time of writing (link) demonstrates that Mr Sunak is running his campaign with a well-oiled PR machine. He’s also given an ‘exclusive’ to the former Torygraph (paywalled link) where he abuses the name of Mrs T. 

Rishi ain’t no Iron Lady but his campaign and utterances show me who the politician is on whom he’s modelling himself: the French wannabe Napoleon. Other candidates are now also suddenly finding their inner Mrs T. A pity they were so oblivious during the premierships of Ms May and Mr BJ. 

There are ‘other news’ which ought to disturb at least some editors and ‘PM runners’: the situation in Sri Lanka where the President and his family have now fled the country, ‘in a military jet’, as the BBC reports (link). The DM (link), the DT (paywalled link) also report this event. So does The Times, using a headline dripping with post-colonial condescension: “End of The Terminator: president flees Sri Lanka” (link, paywalled).

The articles are hidden underneath a host of other news, detailing how the President managed to flee: see, ‘tis a 3rd-world country somewhere far away where people do that sort of thing … They also mention in passing that this revolt is due to an insurmountable economic crisis. Yes, there is one and this has been developing for some time now. 

However, the main reason for this economic catastrophe isn’t mentioned: green crap policies. Only Melanie Phillips describes how those wonderful policies led to this revolt:

“While corruption and general mismanagement have played their part, the principal cause of this crisis has been an obsession with organic farming. Last April, the government imposed a nationwide ban on the import and use of synthetic fertilisers and pesticides and ordered the country’s two million farmers to go organic.” (link, paywalled)

It’s a self-inflicted, ‘green’ crisis There’s more – something which those in contact with their Tory MPs or their local party bigwigs must demand to be debated by those candidates. First see this:

“The results were catastrophic. Domestic rice production fell steeply, forcing a country that had long been self-sufficient in rice to import $450 million worth of the stuff. The fertiliser ban also devastated other exports. In desperation, the government last February suspended the ban for key crops including tea, rubber and coconut.” (link, paywalled)

Ms Phillips points out that the Sri Lankan PM was celebrated at last year’s COP26 for his wonderful green crappery and mentions that the UN and vested green interests have been pushing nitrogen as the latest ‘climate catastrophe’ culprit. Even though our glorious MSM don’t write about it, we have learned from other sources that this is the reason for the Dutch farmers’ protests: their government is also indulging in green crappery and demands to reduce nitrogen ‘output’ by 50% by 2030 and never mind the global ‘food crisis’ – that’s Putin’s fault.

Ms Phillips’ concluding paragraphs ought to be slapped round the candidates’ heads. It’s too much to hope that her colleagues in the MSM will be permitted to mention Net Zero. After all, they depend on being ‘FoC’ (friends of Carrie):

“Climate change is poised to become a wedge issue in the Tories’ leadership election. With Kemi Badenoch and Suella Braverman signalling their opposition to net zero, the Tories’ green believers are scaremongering that the party would be “digging our electoral grave” by scrapping climate commitments. On the contrary. Net zero has been a major contributor to Britain’s soaring fuel prices and the cost of living crisis, which played an outsize role in defenestrating Boris Johnson by turning the public against him.” (link, paywalled)

Just so. No amount of glowing phrases about ‘jam tomorrow’ tax reductions, no skilfully assumed posturing as a reincarnation of Mrs T will change this. I am reminded of the ousting of that Romanian dictator all those many years ago. That was another event, reported from a great British height: “oh look what people in minor countries do – how uncivilised”. We all remember what followed: the fall of the Soviet Union. 

Do those Tory wannabe PMs understand that the global green ‘Net Zero’ policy destroys Western economies, leading to the protests we already see? Will they heed Sri Lanka as portent of what will happen if they persist with their green crappery?

Do they actually understand that no amount of tax reductions will help when there’s not sufficient food grown because of ‘Net Zero’? Do these ‘candidates’ actually have a clue, any clue, about our lives beyond the halls of Westminster? Or do they only excel in political skulduggery?



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