What a Shower

While the Tories were in the process of self-destruction and doing a perfectly good job of it, Nigel Farage has returned to the fray as leader of Reform to ensure that, while they are down, they get a jolly good kicking into the bargain.

Everyone knows the Tory party will be in shreds after the election, the only purpose of which will be to decide by how much it gets defeated. I was beginning to think there must be a case for making Sir Keir Starmer the Prime Minister now instead of inflicting us with party political broadcasts, televised debates and all the hot air and leaflets through our doors that accompany general elections.

The return of Farage changes everything. Love him or loathe him, you simply cannot ignore him, and who would not like to see him up against either Sunak or Farage in a debate? He would make mincemeat of both. Reform was always going to be a thorn in the side of the Tories, but with Richard Tice at the helm they were not quite cutting it. Now, with Farage in charge all eyes will be on them with the added spice of the real possibility that Farage could, finally, take a seat in the House of Commons.

But Reform has no hope of winning. Never mind not dropping the Ming vase, which Peter Hitchens reminds us, is all Starmer must do to win the forthcoming election, as I have said before in these pages, he could drop his pants in public and still win. Starmer has no need to worry about optics, having flown to Scotland to deliver the good news about how Great British Energy will deliver us all of from the evil of man-made global warming.

He has also abandoned facts, given that Great British Energy will oversee a whole range of useless measures such as offshore wind and solar panels to deliver ‘net zero’. He must know that the cost of all this will be prohibitive and land on the doormats of the British public. As brilliantly shown in The Daily Sceptic by David Craig last week, the extent to which European countries have implemented these measures is linearly, and positively, correlated with the price of energy in those countries. Danes and Germans – with the highest implementation – pay twice as much for their energy as Hungary and Turkey, which have implemented the least. That probably did not feature in Starmer’s speeches in Scotland.

Then there was poor little Rishi Sunak. Caught in a downpour without any policies, he just started making them up. Everyone, including his own cabinet, was taken by surprise at his proposal to reintroduce national service for young people. This policy proved to be about as popular as a pork pie in a mosque. Absolutely no support emanated from any quarter. A senior ex-military officer dismissed it as ‘bonkers’ and even Sir Keir was able to raise a laugh, referring to it is a ‘teenage Dad’s Army’. ‘Things can only get wetter’, indeed.

Both ends of the main party – the ‘Labcons’, ‘Consocialists’ or whatever name applies to the uniparty which governs us – are trying to appeal to what they consider their natural constituency. Thus, Sunak promises to double down on the triple lock on pensions, ensuring that pensions rise in line with whatever is the highest indicator of the cost of living. This is nice if you’re a pensioner – your correspondent is one – but not so good if you’re a taxpayer, especially a young taxpayer.

Clearly some pensioners are not well off, especially if all they have coming in is the state pension. But many pensioners are very well off having paid for their mortgage, set aside savings and having an additional work-related pension as well as the state pension. Many of these are ‘earning’ more monthly than their children. This one is not a matter of whether it is a good thing to do, it is a simple matter of whether we can afford it. There is even talk of a ‘quadruple lock’ whereby the tax threshold for pensioners would rise to obviate paying tax on their state pensions. This is not a recipe for intergenerational cohesion.

Starmer’s victory is not in doubt but he wants to ensure that Labour keep winning elections by lowering the voting age to 16 years. This may not work as younger people are much less likely to vote than older people. Starmer knows the old adage about having no heart if you are not a socialist when you are young, although he appears to have forgotten the kicker about having no head if you are still one in old age.

Those of us who have had children will recall what the average 16-year-old is like. First, there is the problem of getting them out of bed in the morning, especially boys. Then imagine trying to direct them to a polling station and explaining what they must do to register their vote. Just watch a 16-year-old lad trying to follow the instructions to warm up a pizza in the oven and you’ll get the idea.

But there is no way on earth a 16-year-old is old enough to vote, and there is a fair case to be made that an 18-year-old is also too young. The problem is that, while they think they know what they are doing, they don’t. Consider the development of the pre-frontal cortex of the brain. That’s the part that of the brain that ‘allows us to process the pros and cons of a decision before it is made.’ It is not fully mature until the age of 25. How else do you think Muslim extremist groups convince so many young people to blow themselves up in suicide vests?

Roger Watson is a retired academic, editor and writer. He is a columnist with Unity News Network and writes regularly for a range of conservative journals including The Salisbury Review and The European Conservative. He has travelled and worked extensively in the Far East and the Middle East. He lives in Kingston upon Hull, UK.

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