Fewer people think Starmer will make a competent prime minister than those convinced he won’t.
Crunch the numbers whichever way you want, and we still have an opposition that can win by default but without much enthusiasm.
While an element of this is the lack of trust in Starmer that is the inevitable consequence of his mendacity much is down to the failure of the party to make a challenge to the anti-working-class policies that unite neoliberals of all “parties of government.”
Chris Packham by Garry Knight from London, England – People's Walk for Wildlife 2018 – 04, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=76235680
A judge will decide whether it was lawful for ministers to decide to water down the policies, with a hearing to take place later this year.
Chris Packham has been granted permission for a judicial review of the Government’s decision to reverse some of its green policies.
The naturalist and TV presenter sent a challenge to Prime MinisterRishi Sunak in October after the Government watered down policies aimed at helping to cut UK climate-warming emissions to zero overall by 2050, known as net zero.
Mr Sunak announced the rollback in September, which included delaying the ban on the sale of new diesel and petrol cars from 2030 to 2035, reducing the phase-out of gas boilers from 100% to 80% by 2035, and scrapping the requirement for energy efficiency upgrades for homes.
The Prime Minister said the UK’s approach to net zero was imposing “unacceptable costs on hard-pressed British families”.
In an announcement on Monday, law firm Leigh Day, which is representing Mr Packham, said Mr Justice Eyre had granted permission for the legal challenge to be heard in court.
The legal team said a judge will decide whether it was lawful for ministers to decide to water down the policies, with a hearing to take place later this year.
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Carol Day, a Leigh Day solicitor representing the TV star, said: “Mr Packham will argue that it cannot be lawful for the Government to abandon carefully thought-out policies designed to achieve net zero targets without having other measures in place.
“It would make the Government’s report to Parliament under the Climate Change Act nothing more than a snapshot in time.”
A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesperson said: “We strongly reject these claims and will be robustly defending this challenge.
Rishi Sunak giving a press conference outside No 10 on 1 March 2024. Photograph: Aaron Chown/PA
The prime minister’s address on Friday was a masterclass in gaslighting and made a new art form of rank hypocrisy
“We must face down the extremists who would tear us apart,” Sunak declared to the country on Friday evening. And perhaps never were truer words spoken – at least not by this morally bankrupt prime minister, who is rapidly proving to be one of the most dangerously irresponsible leaders this country has ever faced.
I am still in disbelief at the sheer chutzpah of Sunak wheeling out the No 10 lectern and calling on the whole nation to tune in to an emergency address. Because what came next was not the announcement of a major natural disaster or attack. It wasn’t, as we saw from other world leaders that day, a condemnation of open gunfire against starving people trying to reach aid trucks in Gaza, or a statement of solidarity with Russian protesters against Putin. It wasn’t even the calling of an election.
Instead, what Britain got was a masterclass in gaslighting. Sunak’s performance made a new art form of rank hypocrisy, as he pretended not to know that the very extremism he criticised was being actively driven by his party and peddled in his speech.
Caroline Lucas Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion. Official image by David Woolfall Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
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By choosing to give that inflammatory speech, Sunak has shown that he is prepared to lurch even further to the right in a bid to stop defections to the Reform UK party. The mask has well and truly slipped: this was yet another step in the culture war right from the very top. The hard right of his party will have been overjoyed to see Sunak the strongman, cracking down on dissent, stifling protest and taking aim at immigrants and Muslims.
Ultimately, that speech was a dark moment in British politics. Democracy is indeed under threat from extremists. The problem is, they’re running the government itself – and we need to wake up and stand up to the seriousness of the threat that they pose.
Caroline Lucas is the Green MP for Brighton Pavilion
Not decided if I’ll do more (but I probably will because I enjoy telling him how it is ;).
Response to Rishi Sunak’s extremism speech at Downing Street 1 March 2024.Response to Rishi Sunak’s extremism speech at Downing Street 1 March 2024.Response to Rishi Sunak’s extremism speech at Downing Street 1 March 2024.Response to Rishi Sunak’s extremism speech at Downing Street 1 March 2024.Response to Rishi Sunak’s extremism speech at Downing Street 1 March 2024. Second version of this image with text slightly altered.
Disclosure, calculated on basis of 300 deportations, called ‘staggering’ by chair of home affairs committee
Rishi Sunak’s flagship plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda will cost taxpayers £1.8m for each of the first 300 people the government deports to Kigali, Whitehall’s official spending watchdog has disclosed.
The overall cost of the scheme stands at more than half a billion pounds, according to the figures released to the National Audit Office. Even if the UK sends nobody to the central African state, Sunak has signed up to pay £370m from the public purse over the five-year deal.
The disclosures follow nearly three years of refusals by prime ministers, home secretaries and senior Home Office staff to explain the full costs of the deal, citing “commercial confidentiality”.
So far, no asylum seeker has been sent to Rwanda, because of repeated challenges to the scheme under European and UK laws.
