Sunak: He is always right, a devious ironist

Net Zero Activist

Like many others, I was relieved when Rishi Sunak took over as PM after the stark raving bonkers Johnson years and the dazed and confused days of Liz Truss. Surely Sunak could not be as untrustworthy or unfit to be PM as either of his predecessors who are now locked in a battle to acquire the soubriquet of Britain's worst-ever Prime Minister. I just expected him to provide some integrity, consistency, and willingness to engage in civil relations with the devolved nations, the EU, and other world leaders. I never expected to agree with most of his policies. I held no truck with his dry right-wing views on the economy and public services nor his disdain for the environment and social justice.

This week has convinced me that I was wrong about Sunak's integrity and honesty as he decided to junk the government's policy of reaching net zero. His integrity is entirely random and is jettisoned when he thinks it might not go down well with the Tory Party or the media. How he has the barefaced nerve to claim that delaying several well-established policies will not affect the achievement of net zero targets is being very economical with the truth. This is abundantly evident from this fact check on zero carbon transition. The Climate Change Committee, an independent Committee established by the 2008 Climate Change Act and chaired by an ex-Tory Minister, Lord Deben, had already castigated the government for failing to maintain progress. It is worth viewing the excellent Annual Report on net zero progress. The basic message is that the UK is far from world-beating. It is failing to meet its own targets, and government ministers must get real and show a far stronger commitment. And this report was published in June before Rishi Sunak's most recent announcements to curb progress even further.

If Sunak's cynical demotion of measures to reduce climate change wasn't enough to make him another contender for the worst PM, he then claimed that he would be scrapping a set of policies. They were a selection of what he regards as 'woke' proposals that would not play well with the electorate. Thus, compulsory carpooling, requiring seven bins for recycling, taxing meat, and taxes to discourage flying were all denounced as policies he would scrap. It was devious kite flying on his part. They were never government policies, merely a collection of ideas put forward by various lobbying groups.  Certainly, discouraging domestic flights would make a big difference as there was a 95% increase in carbon emissions from the aviation industry in the past year. But it is not a government proposal and not something that frequent flyers like Sunak would introduce. He was the Chancellor who cut existing air passenger duties for domestic flights, a two-fingered gesture to COP 26 in Glasgow. His honesty and trust are not worth a hill of beans.

So what is Sunak for? He has shown no courage in his first year of rooting out corrupt behaviour in his MPs. He has been cowardly in refusing to appear at Inquiries or PM Questions, and he has shown little interest in attending world events on climate change or the United Nations. Admittedly the Tory Party is a smorgasbord of disrupters who have a track record of bringing down their leaders. Sunak's only brave decision of integrity is not approving Liz Truss's honours nominations for peerages! His speeches and interviews are given in a condescending style and there is an unwillingness to accept any culpability or criticism. His nasally nuanced twisting of facts to substantiate whatever "world-leading" claim he is trying to sell to the electorate is seldom convincing. His smiling countenance as he delivers anodyne and factually vacuous soundbites is merely a veneer to embrace a populism that doesn't become him. 

His frequent absences from Parliament and consistent failure to call out his MPs who have transgressed corruption or other charges are evasive and cowardly. His tardiness in showing any willingness to collaborate with health professionals, trade unions, or other political parties is a measure of his insecurity. His tendency to introduce policies that are not going to be achieved by his government or anytime soon marks him out as a last-minute substitute waiting for the final whistle. The only conclusion from his first year in office is that he is every bit as unwilling to accept the truth as his predecessors. He seems to think that he is always right but that only applies to his political views.

Moo