War in Ukraine at stalemate, inflation still at 7%, growth barely above recession levels, soaring NHS waiting lists; what better time for the government to focus on the issues that really matter to the public – 20mph speed limits, the pernicious expansion of bus lanes, not to mention the terrifying threat of more ultra-low emission zones? Time for action, and Rishi Sunak is there at the Tory Party conference to defend hard-pressed motorists against the wokerati, the blob and communism. True, his 34 pre-conference radio interviews were a bit of a disaster: having himself initiated speculation about the possible cancellation of the HS2 extension to Manchester, he ducked answering a direct question on the subject no less than 12 times in one day. This is the prime minister who boasts of facing the tough questions, of making the long-term difficult decisions. Except those on HS2. And those on climate change.
The Tories believe they have a winning game if they can distract attention from their monumental incompetence, their vicious attacks on the working class, the trashing of the NHS and their unbridled racism, by pulling together an electoral alliance of motorists. At present, motorists face speed limits which will reduce the number they can kill on the roads and are banned from using bus lanes at least in working hours. Sunak wishes to change all that as being against British values. Councils will face restrictions in the 20mph zones they can introduce; they will be limited in the fines they can levy from cameras in bus lanes or box junctions. Councils planning to create ‘15-minute cities’ which are billed to limit traffic and encourage closer links between shops, work place and homes will face extra hurdles. Sunak’s personal preference is for helicopter travel.
Making the tough, long-term decisions on climate change, and in particular moving to net zero carbon emissions by 2050, Sunak confirmed on the weekend before parliament recessed on 26 September for the conference season that the government’s 2030 ban on producing new petrol and diesel cars was not up for discussion. The following weekend it was all change: the ban would be postponed until 2035. There was uproar from the car industry which had set all its plans for electric vehicle production in place based on the 2030 date – only to find that they would need to be unravelled. The ruling class is not happy with yet another example of governmental incompetence – it is desperate for government by a united party which gives at least the semblance of capability, and so its representatives are flocking to the Labour conference in early October. The ban on new domestic gas boilers was also postponed, from 2025 to 2035, much to the relief of private landlords detemined to maintain slum conditions for their tenants.
While Sunak implements his version of decisive, competent, honest government, others are going out of their way to pitch themselves as the next Tory leader when they lose the 2024 general election. One of the most brazen of these is Home Secretary Suella Braverman. Frustrated in her attempts to send migrants to Rwanda or Ascension Island or whatever hellhole can be found, she is unable to comprehend that however cruel and repressive the legislation crafted by the government to keep migrants out, it still cannot match the fear, despair and poverty that continue to drive them from their own homes to the shores of inhospitable Britain. But she has a new wheeze – to persuade the United Nations to redraft the entire framework of the international legislation that protects refugees to suit Britain’s racist interests. To imagine that anyone would take seriously the representative of a government of a declining power staggering towards a deserved oblivion was an astonishing arrogance. But then she was really speaking to the dregs of humanity that make up the membership of the Tory Party.
With conference season come the zombies, it seems. Liz Truss, the seven-week prime minister has been doing the rounds reassuring the credulous that she was right all along, and repeating her belief that the economy has been shackled by Treasury orthodoxy. While there may be those that laugh, the truth is that hers was the unbridled voice of capital, and her economic strategy is one that will receive further consideration if Labour fails to resolve the crisis. For the moment, she is an embarrassment, a swivelled-eyed loon. But she could well be back.
And what of the others in this fourth-rate cabinet which has provided short-term occupation to the least competent? Education Secretary Gillian Keegan lamented that no one had praised her for ‘doing a fucking good job’ over the schools’ reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) crisis when there was no evidence she had done anything of any substance beyond interrupting her holiday. Perhaps she was hoping that the press would pick up on the fact that Sunak as Chancellor of the Exchequer had halved the funding for school rebuilding so that 50 rather than 100 would benefit from the money. 104 schools have had to be closed due to the presence of RAAC. Grant Shapps, who keeps popping up as the useful incompetent, made his money selling dodgy financial schemes online under false names – as even LBC’s James O’Brien put it, ‘how on Earth did this snake oil merchant become Minister of Defence?’ Shapps has cheerfully admitted he knows absolutely nothing about his brief. This really is scraping the crud from the bottom of the barrel. These people are part of a government whose policies are devastating the lives of working class people, fuelling the warming of the planet which is rapidly approaching the point of no return for humanity, driving war and poverty and exploitation, condemning migrants to their deaths. They are not jokes.
Robert Clough
FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 296 October/November 2023
