The troubling truth about the Greens

Wind farms. Heat pumps. Hamas apologism. It’s a curious combination, but one that an alarmingly high number of Green party candidates seem keen to pursue at this General Election.

Yes, the political party nominally devoted to a single issue – ‘saving the planet’, at the cost of ordinary people’s living standards – has landed itself in another anti-Semitism scandal, after a bunch of its candidates for parliament were caught posting pro-Hamas or Israelophobic things online.

Around 20 would-be Green MPs have made rancid statements about Israel, Hamas and 7 October, according to a devastating report in the Times. Adam Pugh, candidate for Deptford and Lewisham North, took to X on the day of the pogrom, saying ‘there is no peace without freedom. Resist.’ Kefentse Dennis, candidate for Birmingham’s Perry Barr, praised a ‘pro-Palestine’ demonstration that disrupted a Holocaust remembrance march. At Auschwitz. ‘It’s because never again means never again’, Dennis said. To add insult to injury, he’s also the Greens’ equalities and diversity coordinator.

Then there’s Simon Anthony (Barking), who compared Hamas to the Home Guard and the French Resistance (he has since said he condemns ‘all forms of violence’); Nataly Anderson (Woking), who wondered out loud if 7 October was ‘orchestrated’, presumably by Israel; and Chris Brody (Chingford and Woodford Green), who shared an article claiming the worst atrocity committed against Jews since the Holocaust may have been a ‘false flag engineered to open the way to the genocide of the Palestinian people of Gaza’. The post has since been deleted. Incredibly, I could go on.

A Green party spokesman has said the allegations are ‘serious and are being treated as such’. But that’s a little hard to believe, given the Greens’ recent form. Last month, Mothin Ali, a Green party councillor elected in the May local elections, was exposed for his own despicable comments about Israel and 7 October, and he still doesn’t appear to have been suspended.

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You remember Ali, he was the gentleman who declared his election a ‘win for the people of Gaza’ and chanted ‘Allahu Akbar’ at his count. Shortly after his victory speech went viral, it emerged that he had posted a video on 8 October, saying ‘Palestinians have the right to resist occupying forces’.

It got worse. Ali had also joined in an online campaign against Zecharia Deutsch, a Jewish chaplain at Leeds University. This was because Deutsch, a reservist in the Israeli Defence Forces, was called up for three months following 7 October. Ali falsely claimed Deutsch had deliberately tried to kill women and children in Gaza and called on Leeds to sack him. ‘You should be protecting students from this kind of animal, because if he’s willing to kill people over there, how do you know he’s not going to kill your students over here?’, he said. Deutsch returned to the UK to a bombardment of death threats, forcing him and his family into hiding. 

Green party co-leader Carla Denyer has called Ali’s comments ‘very concerning’. Ali has made a vague, utterly unconvincing apology. An investigation is ongoing. But what is there to investigate? Hounding an innocent rabbi and whitewashing an Islamist, anti-Semitic pogrom as ‘resistance’ are hardly on the subtle side. As it stands, Ali is still listed as a Green councillor on the Greens’ and Leeds City Council’s respective websites.

Most disturbingly, the Greens were presented with a dossier of evidence about Ali, by the Daily Mail’s Guy Adams, in February – and seemingly did absolutely nothing about it. We are within our rights to raise a sceptical eyebrow at Denyer’s shocked response after Ali’s comments resurfaced following the locals. 

So this is the niche the Green party is keen to fill now, is it? And how do these views square with the Greens’ particularly fanatical embrace of misogynistic transgenderism? How is any of this remotely ‘progressive’, the political tradition the party claims to represent?

In a way, it all makes a perverse kind of sense. That extreme environmentalism has come to be seen as even vaguely left-wing is crazy when you think about it. The Greens’ anti-growth, anti-fossil-fuel, anti-car agenda would immiserate the working classes – and kneecap the poor of the developing world – to salve the consciences of bourgeois, Farmers’ Market aficionados. It is an ideology of knowing one’s place.

What’s more, British environmentalism has many – often unacknowledged – historical connections to disturbing movements. Jorian Jenks, co-founder of the Soil Association, was a card-carrying member of Oswald Mosley’s Fascists. Writer and naturalist Henry Williamson, best known for his book Tarka the Otter, was an admirer of Adolf Hitler (another early eco-nut), and believed ‘usurial moneyed interests’ not only caused war but were also destroying the British countryside.

How grim that today’s Greens have been caught making excuses for the primary fascistic, Jew-hating threat we face today – namely, radical Islamism. Indeed, Islamofascism – like plain old fascism – has always had a strong environmentalist bent: Osama bin Laden would often rail against ‘catastrophic’ climate change, which he laid at the feet of ‘Satanic’ American capitalism. 

Perhaps the rampant Hamas apologism among the Greens’ General Election candidates isn’t all that surprising after all.

Nigel Farage will be disappointed by his BBC debate performance

It had been called the dinner party from hell. A seven-strong convention of the also rans. But only one dinner guest really mattered: Nigel Farage. The populist politician’s last-minute decision to stand as a Reform candidate in Clacton has struck fear into the hearts of Conservative MPs across the country, but especially in the 60 marginal seats that Professor John Curtice says Reform could help the Tories lose on 4 July.

But none of tonight’s participants in the BBC debate were going to allow the debate to turn into the Nigel Farage show. He was largely closed down by the other six politicians who were determined to paint him as an anti-immigration ‘bigot’ as the Plaid Cymru leader, Rhun Ap Iorwerth, put it, who would privatise the NHS as soon as look at. 

Farage did actually say the NHS model is ‘broken’ and called for insurance-based funding as in France. He got in some Trumpist jeering. Sir Keir Starmer is ‘Blair without the flair’, he said, and he branded the PM, ‘Rishi slippery Sunak’. He also said Angela Rayner is the real Labour leader. 

But the audience didn’t warm to Farage’s claim that this is ‘the immigration election’ and that it is causing a ‘population crisis’. The SNP Westminster leader, Stephen Flynn, earned one of the few spontaneous outbreaks of applause for saying we need more immigration not less. No doubt Farage will think the audience was rigged by the BBC globalists. 

Penny Mordaunt agreed that with Farage that ‘immigration is too high’ and warned that there would be ‘uncontrolled immigration under Labour’ because they have ‘no plan’. Angela Rayner also seemed to agree with Farage that immigration is too high and blamed 14 years of Conservative government for it. Her plan is a border force and scrapping the Rwanda scheme. 

Rishi Sunak’s early departure from the D-Day commemorations was inevitably the first question from the audience. Was the Tory leader of the house, Penny Mordaunt, a naval reservist, going to defend her leader? Not a bit of it. ‘What happened was completely wrong and the PM has rightly apologised to everyone’. Nigel Farage said the PM’s ‘desertion’ of the D-Day event revealed him as ‘an unpatriotic Prime Minister’. 

The liveliest exchanges of the evening, if you could call them that, were unsurprisingly over Sunak’s £2000 tax bombshell, which has blown up in the Prime Minister’s face after the Treasury permanent secretary, James Bowler, suggested the costing was misleading. Mordaunt tried to mobilise the tax artillery but it led to an incoherent shouting match between her and Angela Rayner. ‘That was terribly dignified wasn’t it,’ said the Green co-leader, Carla Denyer. It wasn’t.

Mordaunt accused Rayner of voting to scrap Trident. She denied it. ‘We will keep (the) nuclear deterrent’, she said, though only this week the Labour deputy leader said that ‘she hadn’t changed her mind on nuclear weapons’. Stephen Flynn too called for the abolition of Trident. He also unveiled a new SNP slogan: ‘It’s Scotland’s wind and Scotland’s waves’, he said, that is powering the green energy transition. Everyone supported the transition except Nigel Farage who said it was too expensive. Mordaunt had a poke at Labour’s new state owned energy company, GB Energy. It stands for Giant Bills, she said. Boom boom.

The surprise of the night was a new coalition on electoral reform between Farage and the Lib Dems’ deputy leader, Daisy Cooper, though neither of them seemed very interested in celebrating it. Cooper tried the old trick of accusing the big parties of being unable to keep their promises. That was until the moderator, Mishal Husain, asked her if she remembered that promise about abolishing tuition fees. Ouch. 

Mordaunt’s debate strategy was to pretend Farage wasn’t there

How is it possible that a seven-way debate between the main parties in this election was more civilised than the two-way stand-off between Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak earlier this week? Tonight’s BBC debate was bizarrely better viewing. Sure, the party representatives interrupted one another, attacked each other, and flung about fake figures. But it was easier to follow.

It was also fascinating to see who attacked who. Penny Mordaunt largely pretended Nigel Farage didn’t exist, but interrupted Angela Rayner frequently. Farage – who was in much better humour and shape than the 2015 election and 2016 Brexit debates, which he largely sweated through – obviously went for the Conservatives the most, saying in his closing statement that this election wasn’t just about the government, but about who would be in opposition. Tory MPs listening to that will have heard a threat, given the Reform leader’s desire to take over their party when it is in the post-election defeat doldrums.

Everyone based their statements on the premise that Labour was going to win the election and that the Tories were doomed, and Mordaunt didn’t do that much to fight back, instead offering regular critiques of what she saw as being the key Labour policies. That included the dodgy £2,000 tax claim that Sunak made earlier in the week, as well as a memorable line that Labour GB Energy company stood for ‘Giant Bills’.

Farage took issue with Mordaunt’s claim about tax, saying the Tories claiming that they believed in lower taxes was ‘dishonesty on a breathtaking scale’. Rayner also said it was a lie, and that the Tories had put taxes up. That was another theme of everyone’s response: lies. Lib Dem deputy leader Daisy Cooper in particular accused the Tories of lying, but so did the other speakers. 

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The two nationalist parties – Plaid Cymru and the SNP – both wanted to accuse the Tories and Labour of being the same. Stephen Flynn, always impressive as SNP Westminster group leader, was crisp and clear as he spoke about his own experience of disability and later as he critiqued Labour’s energy policy and what it meant for Scotland. He glossed over the SNP’s own ambiguities over licences for oil and gas in the North Sea. Plaid Cymru’s Rhun Ap Iorwerth similarly accused the Tories and Labour of speaking the same language. Carla Denyer for the Greens had the knockout blow on this, though. In her closing statement, she said: ‘Angela Rayner said Keir Starmer had changed the Labour party. She’s right. He’s turned them into the Conservatives.’

Notably, though, Mordaunt did not defend or praise Rishi Sunak. The first question inevitably ended up being about D-Day, and she simply said that what had happened was ‘very wrong’, adding: ‘The Prime Minister has rightly apologised for that, apologised to veterans, but also to all of us because he was representing all of us. I’m from Portsmouth. I’ve also been defence secretary and my wish at the end of this week is that all of our veterans feel completely treasured.’

Both she and Rayner are class acts, and often benefit from their respective leaders’ misfortunes. Perhaps Mordaunt was quite happy to address the D-Day question early on because of this. But by the end, she seemed rather downbeat. The assumption shared across the room that the Tories are about to lose very badly seemed to be weighing on her.

Watch: Sunak heckled by local GP

When it rains for Rishi Sunak, it pours. Just hours after the Prime Minister was forced to apologise for leaving D-day commemorations early to film a pre-recorded ITV interview, Sunak was faced with more challenges on the election trail.

During a campaign visit, a frustrated member of the public — who is also a local doctor — had a go at the beleaguered PM over his party’s NHS workforce plan. It supports the training of physician associates to work in the health service, which has caused outrage in the medical community amidst fears that doctors in the country are not being adequately supported by the government.

In a rather robust rant, the GP raged:

What are you going to do about that? 37,000 GPs will not vote Conservative because of the constructive dismissal of general practice that is currently occurring. You cannot employ lesser qualified people instead of GPs. They cannot be replaced. The country is not stupid.

That’s him told…

Watch the clip here:

As it happened: Mordaunt clashes with Rayner in BBC election debate

Nigel Farage traded blows with Labour’s Angela Rayner and the Tories’ Penny Mordaunt in tonight’s seven-way BBC election debate. Rishi Sunak’s decision to leave D-Day commemorations in France early was also a big talking point in the debate which involved Daisy Cooper, deputy leader of the Lib Dems, the SNP’s Stephen Flynn, Rhun ap Iorwerth of Plaid Cymru and Green party co-leader Carla Denyer. Here’s all the action and analysis as it unfolded on our live blog:

Farage is wrong to question Sunak’s patriotism

It didn’t take long for Nigel Farage to weaponise Sunak’s D-Day debacle. ‘Rishi Sunak pops into Normandy but omits to go to the big international commemoration,’ he says in a pre-debate warmup video. ‘He doesn’t really care about our history. He doesn’t really care, frankly, about our culture…This man is not patriotic. Doesn’t believe in the country, its people, its history or frankly even its culture. If you’re a patriotic voter, don’t vote for Rishi Sunak.’

Jeremy Corbyn was frequently attacked for being unpatriotic but that’s more to do with his links with Sinn Fein and taking the non-British side in a few too many international disputes. It is absurd for anyone to question the patriotism of Sunak who, like Sajid Javid, is the son of immigrants who quit a very successful financial career in hope of giving back. Both of them went into politics in hope of doing what they could to make their own success stories less rare. Sunak has spoken repeatedly and movingly about the debt his family owes this country having pursued their British dream.

But Farage is trying to be inflammatory. The idea is to turn the conversation to the subject of your choice (Sunak’s patriotism) by making vile accusations that will get people talking by sheer shock factor. This is the Tump playbook, a standard populist election technique. Here’s his Sky News version of the same attack line.

So it’s perhaps worth mentioning what Sunak really did in the D-Day commemorations. Leaving early was a big miscalculation, for which he has apologised and I don’t demur from the critiques published on this website. But given that so much weight is being placed on what happened, it may help to put things in context. 

His programme of commemorations started in Portsmouth on Wednesday, where he welcomed the Prince of Wales to the D-Day ceremony and sat with the king. This was the event where the Queen wept. Sunak gave a reading: General Montgomery’s letter to the troops just before the invasion. He then met veterans and their families, others who read in the ceremony and servicemen and women. After that, there was lunch with veterans and their families – where he went to every single table.

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Sunak arrived at the British Normandy Memorial the next day and gave a speech, then headed to the British ceremony in the small coastal village of Ver-sur-Mer. The PM addressed veterans and their families, greeted Emmanuel Macron and walked down with him. Both then went to the memorial and spent half an hour meeting veterans: Sunak offered to wheel one of them through the memorial. After that, he and his wife spent an hour with veterans in a tent: again, they went to every single table. Finally, Sunak and the King went to unveil a plaque at the newly-opened Churchill Centre, part of the Memorial. Yet again, he was talking to veterans whilst they waited for the king to arrive. 

The British side of the ceremony then concluded. The King left. Sunak (fatally) followed soon after. The international ceremony in Omaha beach in the afternoon then was far more developed than No10 had originally believed. David Cameron stayed and the resulting photos are, now, notorious: a foreign secretary, standing next to three G7 world leaders while his boss was in London being interviewed by ITV. Sunak didn’t go back for the interview: skipping the afternoon ceremony (which No. 10 had been told would not be attended by any veterans) was always Sunak’s plan, set before he called the election. ‘I stuck to the itinerary that had been set for me weeks ago,’ he said in his Sky News apology. ‘On reflection, it was a mistake not to stay longer – and I’ve apologised for that. But I also don’t think it’s right to be political in the middle of D-Day veterans.’

Would it have been ‘political’ to change his itinerary,? Of course not. The big mystery is the Foreign Office. It is very good at diplomatic protocol and will have been able to alert No10 when the afternoon event quickly became a Macron-Sholtz-Biden-UK photocall. The FCO know the disrespect implied in sending a Foreign Secretary to meet three G7 world leaders. If Zelensky could make that ceremony while fighting a war for his country’s survival, Sunak could surely spare an afternoon. Did the election (and purdah) somehow stop this being pointed out to him? And what about Cameron, who knows a thing or two about campaign mistakes. Did he try to have a quiet word with Sunak? Or had he stopped caring and happily accept his last photocall with world leaders?

Sunak believes in speaking through actions, and is more interested in policy than the ceremonial aspects of the job. Underestimating the importance of optics and ceremony may have been his undoing here. When it comes to policy, he has an extensive veterans’ agenda; his wife works for such charities – his actions, for veterans, are not in doubt. Perhaps actions should speak louder than ceremonies. But in politics, they don’t – as Sunak will now indelibly learn.

But to stretch this misjudgement into proof that Sunak somehow doesn’t care about Britain’s history, people or culture is a revolting slur impossible to reconcile with the Prime Minister’s policies, record and character. Farage really should be ashamed.

Watch: Galloway blasts ‘believers’ who support Labour

Oh dear. While Prime Minister Rishi Sunak struggles to fend off criticism about leaving Thursday’s D-day commemorations early, another party leader is causing controversy elsewhere. A video of George Galloway of the Workers Party of Britain is doing the rounds in London WhatsApp groups. In a heated campaign speech, Galloway blasted Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour party in an angry tirade:

Anybody who considers themselves to be a religious believer, who intends to vote for Keir Starmer, the genocide agent, should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves, should forget about the Eid, should forget about fasting, should forget about praying. You think God is listening to someone who’s praying one day and voting for Keir Starmer the day before? What kind of a believer would that be?

Good heavens. ‘Isn’t this illegal? Using religious arguments to sway an electorate?’ asked one Twitter user. It seems ‘Gorgeous George’ might have got himself into a rather sticky situation…

Watch the clip here:

Sunak is out of touch, and always has been

Rishi Sunak says it was a ‘mistake’ to leave the 80th anniversary commemorations for D-Day early. That’s one way to describe ditching a memorial to the liberation of Western Europe to record an election interview for the telly. We have heard the various reasons as to why this was such an error. It was dreadful judgement. Terrible optics. Anathema to the very Silent Generation and Baby Boomer voters his election campaign is tailored to.

But while I have no designs on defending him, I suspect this is just who Sunak is. As one highly astute commentator, who isn’t above saying ‘I told you so’, once observed: ‘He combines the perception he is out of touch with the fact of actually being out of touch.’ It would not have occurred to him to stay and talk to the few surviving British veterans of D-Day, to grin for endless photographs as he listened to the same accounts over and over again. That would have required a quality Sunak lacks, and it’s not judgement as his other critics keep saying. It’s empathy. Empathy for the old boys, of course, but empathy also for the public and the reverence with which it regards these men. Empathy for a common, unspoken instinct about how the British prime minister should conduct himself on a D-Day anniversary. 

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Sunak computed events very differently. He had a problem: his £2,000 tax claim was coming unstuck. There was a solution: going on ITV News to defend his assertion. But there was an obstacle: the Normandy events. So he opted for a workaround: leaving early. I have no doubt that in Sunak’s mind he executed the only logical course of action. Given his chilly, unfeeling apology, I get the impression he still doesn’t understand why he is being lambasted.

Recall the reports, which he denies, that as chancellor he suggested England secede from the UK because the Union ‘doesn’t make financial sense to him’. The most woad-caked, saltire-hugging, Braveheart-quoting Scottish nationalist, even as he agitates to break up Britain, understands the emotional investment Tories and Unionists have in its history, shared destiny and constitutional character. A Conservative chancellor, now prime minister, saw only a balance sheet with assets and losses. As our astute commentator also noted: ‘It’s like the Economist set up a chatbot that accidentally got elected Prime Minister.‘

Sunak has no real feeling for D-Day, no feeling for the British people, no feeling for Britain. I wrote the previous sentence with great reluctance because I know some will hear it as a dog-whistle against the first British Asian prime minister. All I can say is that there is no coded meaning here and certainly no racist intent. It is Sunak’s flaws as a politician, not his heritage, that make him stand apart from the nation he leads. 

Sunak is not an evil man. He comes across as a loving husband and a devoted father. He is easier to pity than to hate. He is just singularly unsuited to the office he holds and plainly unable to fake his way through. In that he fails to meet even the low bar cleared by the leader of the opposition. The D-Day commemorations were Sir Keir Starmer’s first official engagement as Prime Minister. He stayed, he listened, he showed respect. He represented our country in a way our prime minister could not. 

The Labour leader will not be long in Downing Street before his own faults become undeniable even to his army of columnist fan boys. To mistake him for a person of character or courage or moral leadership requires a lobotomy for the period 2015 to 2019 inclusive. He is a man of no discernible quality save an instinct for personal survival and that public sector speciality of managing mediocrity. But after 19 months of Rishi Sunak, mediocrity looks prime ministerial. 

Why are Europe’s progressives often intolerant?

For Robert Fico it was a bullet, for Nigel Farage it was a milkshake. The targeting of both men demonstrates the alarming rise of intolerance spreading across Europe. Most of it is perpetrated by people whose political ideology can best be described as progressive, but they are extremists, prepared to make the leap from words to acts.

Fico, for example, the prime minister of Slovakia, describes himself as the leader of a left-wing populist party. The man charged with shooting him last month is a 71-year-old poet and supporter of the liberal party, Progressive Slovakia. The party has denied any links with the accused, who has reportedly said he didn’t intend to kill Fico. It is alleged that the gunman didn’t approve of Fico’s plan to abolish the public broadcaster RTVS or his pro-Russia position.

The 25-year-old woman who has been charged with assaulting Farage outside a pub in Clacton had previously expressed her support for Jeremy Corbyn. She said of the Reform party leader: ‘He doesn’t stand for me, he doesn’t represent anything I believe in, or any of the people around here.’ Farage was the victim of a similar incident in 2019 as he toured Newcastle. On that occasion the man who threw the milkshake, Paul Crowther, told reporters as he was arrested: ‘It’s a right of protest against people like him.’

On the same day that Farage was attacked in Clacton, a local election candidate for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party was stabbed in Mannheim. According to reports, 62-year-old Heinrich Koch was set upon after he challenged a man who was tearing down his party’s election posters. Last week in Mannheim a policeman was killed, and several others wounded, at an anti-Islamism rally.

There have been other incidents in other countries. Last November in Madrid, Alejo Vidal Quadras, the co-founder of the right-wing Vox party was seriously wounded when he was shot in the face. Police have made several arrests but the motive for the assassination attempt remains unclear.

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In the same month a Tory councillor in Glasgow, who has faced years of intimidation and abuse, was assaulted allegedly because of his views on the conflict in Gaza. Also in November, Thierry Baudet, the leader of the Dutch Forum for Democracy, was attacked with a beer bottle as he campaigned ahead of the general election. A few week earlier he had been assaulted during a visit to Belgium by a man with an umbrella who was shouting anti-fascist slogans.

In March this year police in Amsterdam arrested a man in connection with death threats made against the winner of the Dutch election, Geert Wilders. Eric Zemmour, leader of the right-wing Reconquest, has been assaulted twice in recent years, both times by people throwing eggs. The latest incident was last month in Corsica by a woman who shouted ‘fascists out’ as she threw the egg.

One can’t help but laugh coldly at the absurd irony of people railing about fascism as they attempt to prevent a politician from going about their democratic business.

Some progressives find these attacks genuinely amusing. There has been a lot of mirth on social media about Farage’s latest soaking, as there was the first time. ‘I’m thinking, why bother with a milkshake when you could get some battery acid?’ quipped the light entertainer, Jo Brand, on a BBC radio programme in 2019. Brand had her knuckles very gently rapped by the BBC; the media regulator Ofcom investigated her remark but concluded it was ‘unlikely to encourage or incite the commission of a crime’.

Fico this week made his first appearance since the shooting, and he blamed the media for creating a climate of contempt and intolerance that led to the attempt on his life. There is some truth in that accusation. Across the West, elite society is dominated by progressives, overwhelmingly middle or upper-middle class graduates. They are driven by snobbery. When they rage against ‘populism’, they mean the Proles. The ‘gammons’, ‘Karens’ and ‘sans dents’ who voted for Trump, Brexit, Meloni, Le Pen, Zemmour. Wilders et al.

They try to censor the few broadcasters who go against the progressive grain, like GB News and, in France, CNews, which this week became officially the Republic’s most watched news channel. In response, the progressive newspaper Liberation called the popularity of CNews ‘a major shift in the media and political landscape and a real threat to democracy’. It accused the channel of ‘fuelling fear, hatred and anger’.

CNews attribute their spectacular success to the fact that they voice what the Silent Majority thinks. For years, the State-owned TV and radio stations – have pumped out an endless stream of Progressive dogma, which goes down well in the more upmarket Parisian arrondissements but says nothing to the provinces.

CNews is the mouthpiece for those who have been impoverished by globalism, who experience first-hand the result of mass uncontrolled immigration and who feel they are governed by a small elite who hold them and their country in contempt.

The woman who threw the milkshake at Farage objected to his presence because he doesn’t represent her views ‘or any of the people around here’. Really? Seventy per cent of Clacton residents voted for Brexit in 2016.

This explains so much of the progressives’ angry intolerance. They are in the minority, and it drives them mad, and increasingly violent.

SNP’s musical campaign efforts fall on deaf ears

With only four weeks to go until the general election, party campaigns are rapidly ramping up. Politicians and staffers are desperately searching for more creative (and crazy) ways of getting voters’ attention — and north of the border the Nats have mobilised the musical wing of their party.

Taylor Swift is in town for the start of the UK leg of her Eras tour and the SNP’s Swift-mania is in overdrive. One press release from the Nats managed to include a whole, um, 11 references to the star’s songs, including a line from social security secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville that read:

There’s no question that the Tories are out of Style in Scotland — and as the main challengers in every Tory-held seat, only a vote for the SNP can send Sunak packing in his Getaway Car with a clear message that We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.

Goodness. This morning First Minister John Swinney continued the cringe-fest by insisting that renaming the loch in his Scottish constituency to ‘Loch Tay Tay’ creates ‘a new bond between me and the Swifties’. The newest SNP leader went on to announce his favourite Taylor song was ‘You Need to Calm Down’, in which the American singer croons: ‘You just need to take several seats and then try to restore the peace.’ Easier said than done…

And over the last 24 hours it has transpired that Scotland’s First Minister, who was dubbed ‘sexy’ by an activist at an election campaign launch last weekend, has served as many a songwriter’s muse himself. In 1982 Nocturnal Vermin, a punk band from Edinburgh, wrote ‘John Swinney (We Salute You)’ about their classmate’s quest to save Scotland. More recently the Daily Reckless’s Tommy Mackay — himself a punk musician-turned-comedian who founded ‘The Sensational Alex Salmond Gastric Band’ — released a less flattering tune about the new First Minister’s rather dull presentation style. The sedative-referencing lyrics include: ‘Here comes Swinney, pass the mogadon.’

The SNP is of course no stranger to musical MPs, with Runrig bandmate Pete Wishart having represented Perth and North Perthshire since 2001. Might he have inspired one of the SNP’s parliamentary hopefuls? Mr S has discovered that the party’s candidate for Falkirk is trying to woo voters with a song of his own. Tony Giugliano joined forces with Scots group The Bletherin to produce a ‘We are Scotland – Special Version’ that came out last week. ‘Come and join us,’ the long-standing SNP activist warbles. ‘People say it’s time to write a new constitution. And find our way out, escaping from this broken union. We have a voice, and time is on our side.’ Crikey. It’s certainly one way to campaign…

But the Nats will need more than music to save their seats. Labour is consistently polling ahead of the SNP in Scotland, ahead by an average of six points, while pollsters predict Sir Keir’s lefty lot could wipe out most of the nationalist presence in the central belt. One pro-independence activist has even put money on the Nats returning less than 10 seats at the election. Mr S reckons the SNP needs more than Swinney’s Swiftie credentials — and Giugliano’s impassioned vocals — to help them out of this mess…

Nigel Farage’s biggest gift to the Labour party

Labour has a lot of reasons to be thankful for Nigel Farage. Reform was already creeping up on the Tories in the polls, even before the party’s honorary president announced this week that he would take up the role of leader and stand in Clacton. Now the polls are nearly neck-and-neck. The most recent YouGov survey – published on Wednesday, accounting for Farage’s announcement but not Tuesday night’s debate – showed Reform on 17 per cent, a mere two points behind the Conservatives.

As Katy Balls notes in this week’s magazine, Farage likes to insist that Reform tends to take more votes from Labour than the Tories, but the main bloc up for grabs seems to be 2019 Tory voters. ‘Those people who are saying they’re going to vote Labour won’t when they see that I’m here and what I’m standing for in this election’, Farage told Channel 4 this week. Perhaps, but Boris Johnson’s supporters in the Red Wall are just as likely to see him too. 

This is one of the many gifts Farage has handed Labour by entering the race this week. Another is on tax: by sucking all the oxygen out of the campaign, the persistent pursuit of Labour’s tax agenda has let up. The momentum building to the big reveal about the party’s tax and spend plans has largely subsided, as the focus – and entertainment – has pivoted to Farage.

Last week – before Farage’s announcements – Labour were being forced to grapple with their plans for tax. Asked repeatedly what taxes would rise under a Labour government, both Keir Starmer and his shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, came very close to ruling out any more increases within a matter of days. Reeves once again ruled out income tax rises on Sunday and by Tuesday she was promising what had already been announced – including a bigger windfall tax on oil and gas companies and VAT on private-school fees – was ‘the sum of the tax changes’ that Labour was bringing in.

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But the focus shifted. In the ITV leaders’ debate, Starmer was only asked to rule out the taxes he has already said he will not raise over the next parliament – leaving a long list of questions about what else Labour might do. Only yesterday the Guardian revealed growing pressure from shadow ministers on Starmer and Reeves to commit to other major revenue raisers, including an increase to capital gains tax. These are questions Labour still needs to answer, but not as quickly or with as much focus on these issues, with Farage in the game.

Of course it isn’t just Reform enabling Labour to have an easier ride. But for Starmer, keeping tax out of the headlines – and avoiding particular tax commitments – is the best outcome his party can get. The irony is stark: Farage entered this race, in part, to draw attention to the near-record high tax burden that he thinks could be made even heavier by Labour. But since jumping into the campaign, Labour’s had far fewer questions to answer.

How many more houses will Labour actually build?

Is Labour really going to help get 80,000 people on the housing ladder over the next five years under its Freedom to Buy scheme, as it is claiming this morning? Given the rather light ambition of this target, I would say it probably has a chance of hitting that target, although it won’t transform the life-chances of young people.

According to the ONS, 51.4 per cent of 20 to 24-year-olds were still living with their parents, along with 26.7 per cent of 25 to 29-year-olds. That is several million people who in past generations might have been expected to be making their own way in the world – indeed, the figures above have grown substantially over the past decade: in 2011, 44.5 per cent of 20 to 24-year-olds and 20.1 per cent of 25 to 29-year-olds were living with their parents. As for those who have managed to move out of the parental home, many are renting rather than buying. In 2022, 39.1 per cent of 25 to 35-year-olds owned their home, down from 56.5 per cent two decades earlier.

To promise to create an extra 80,000 homeowners, then, would not reverse the long-term decline in home-ownership among young people. Moreover, the way Labour is promising to do it may merely make things worse in the longer run. Labour’s Freedom to Buy scheme is really just a reheated version of the current government’s Mortgage Guarantee Scheme, which itself is just a rehashed form of the mortgage guarantee element of George Osborne’s Help to Buy scheme. The purpose of each of these has been to underwrite high loan-to-value mortgages so that the banks feel more confident about advancing these loans, thus enabling first-time buyers to buy property without having to wait in order to amass a huge deposit.

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But there is a reason why banks have become shy of offering 90 or 95 per cent mortgages – they burned their fingers on them in the past. Immediately prior to the 2008/09 financial crisis, Northern Rock was even offering a 125 per cent mortgage – and we know how that ended. The problem with 90 or 95 per cent home loans is that it doesn’t take much of a fall in house prices to leave buyers in negative equity – and banks with loans on their books which are no longer fully secured by assets. The collapse of the US housing market in 2008 was enough to destabilise much of the financial system, so much so that after the crash there was serious consideration in government circles as to whether high loan-to-value mortgages should be banned. Gordon Brown decided against it, and then George Osborne came up with an alternative idea: let’s encourage these loans by having the taxpayer take on the banks’ risk instead. As for homebuyers, they remain at risk of negative equity, whoever is bearing the risk of them defaulting on their debt.

On its own, mortgage guarantee schemes do little to solve the housing problem because they are merely helping to boost demand. If the supply of housing remains tight, they run the risk of inflating prices further, making life even more difficult for the next generation of homebuyers. Look at what has happened since Osborne introduced Help to Buy in 2013: the rate of housebuilding rose slowly after 2013 but has never matched government ambitions for long. Last year, 149,000 new homes were built in England – just half the 300,000 which Boris Johnson’s government had promised – before Rishi Sunak abandoned the target. Given that net migration has hit record highs over the past couple of years, you can see the problem.

What is Labour going to do to boost housebuilding? It is talking about building on ‘greyfield’ land, by which it seems to mean abandoned car parks in the green belt. I don’t know how many abandoned car parks there are around the M25, but I would guess not enough to house Britain’s growing constituency of frustrated would-be homebuyers. And even if there were, it would not solve the problem of rising construction costs, a lack of construction workers – many of whom Labour might well find are diverted onto its programme to insulate existing homes. Without resolving the fundamental shortage of supply, Freedom to Buy merely risks stoking house price inflation further.

Watch: Sunak grovels over D-day ‘mistake’

Oh dear. The story of the day may well become the story of the election campaign as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak struggles to explain why he missed part of Thursday’s D-day commemorations in Normandy to film a pre-recorded ITV interview. On Friday morning, Suank apologised on Twitter for snubbing aspects of the 80th anniversary events — which were attended by a number of international leaders including France’s Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s Olaf Scholz and President Biden — and at lunchtime the PM eventually faced the cameras.

A solemn Sunak told journalists:

I’ve participated in a number of events, in Portsmouth and France, to honour those who risked their lives to defend our freedom and our values 80 years ago. The itinerary for these events was set weeks ago, before the start of the general election campaign, and having participated in all the British events with British veterans, I returned home before the international leaders’ event later in the day. On reflection, that was a mistake and I apologise.

But the Prime Minister’s show of contrition hasn’t convinced everyone, with one 98-year-old D-day veteran saying that Sunak ‘let the country down’ while a Tory candidate told Sky News that the PM’s actions show ‘disdain for the armed forces’. And Mr S doesn’t envy Penny Mordant much, either. The Royal Navy reservist is fighting the Conservatives’ corner in tonight’s BBC election debate and will no doubt face some rather challenging questions on Sunak’s slip-up. ‘Judge me by my actions,’ was the PM’s message to voters today. Er, they certainly are…

Watch the clip here:

Voters won’t forget Sunak’s D-Day snub

It’s hard to think of anything Rishi Sunak could have done that would cause greater offence to the British sensibility. You do not, not if you’re the British prime minister, sack off the D-Day commemorations in Normandy to return home early under any circumstances – least of all in order to do an ITV interview on tax. It’s not just disrespectful to the fallen. His early exit suggests that this is all just a game for Sunak. It seems to send a message that he stands for precisely nothing – beyond being prime minister. 

Can you imagine Boris Johnson – whom Sunak knifed so expertly on his way to the top – doing the same thing? Of course not – it’s unthinkable. Say what you like about Boris, but he understood the fundamental importance of patriotism and that respect for elders – particularly those who made the ultimate sacrifice – is the very basis of British culture. Liz Truss would also have remained in Omaha. Keir Starmer would have (and did) stay. Nigel Farage stayed. But you don’t need expert political judgement for this. You could pick anyone at random on a British street, put them in that situation and their basic intuition would tell them to stay. Only Sunak would think that breaking a campaign truce to give an TV interview was a higher priority.

Yesterday, Lord Ashcroft published the findings of polling research he has conducted on which election issues the British public have taken most notice of. Largely, it seemed to show nothing has really cut through – certainly not prior to the late entrance into the race of one Nigel Farage. The ludicrous seeming suggestion the Tories would introduce national service should they win came top – it was noticed by 24 per cent of respondents. The pension triple lock plus proposal got 7 per cent, and the ruling out of by both parties of tax increases 4 per cent. It’s a snooze fest. 

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We shall remember, though. One thing I would venture everyone in this country will remember – now and for the rest of his political life – will be the moment Rishi looked around at the nonagenarians assembled proudly in their military fatigues and medals in Normandy and thought: ‘sod this, I’ve got somewhere else to be.’ When Jeremy Corbyn would not turn out properly for such events, people noticed. David Cameron once effectively chided Corbyn for this lack of respect in the House of Commons, saying his mother would have told him: ‘put on a proper suit, do up your tie and sing the national anthem’. It is unfathomable that anyone would need to tell a British Prime Minister to stay for the Normandy commemorations.

Farage, of course, was there. Not just because he wanted to take advantage of the publicity opportunities on offer – but because he is a second world war history buff who makes regular pilgrimages to the graveyards in France. Like many of us, Farage now seems almost unable to believe what Sunak did yesterday. 

Leaving Normandy early was a howling error – worse than Gordon Brown calling a Labour supporter a bigot – and one from which Sunak won’t recover.

Rishi Sunak is bad at politics. Who knew?

Everyone is finally noticing that Rishi Sunak is rubbish at politics.

Given the scale of his faux pas in bailing out of D-Day commemorations early to get back on the campaign trail, it is hard not to. As a longstanding member of the ‘Rishi is Rubbish’ club, I find it difficult not to feel the kind of proprietorial irritation that fans of cult rock bands suffer when their heroes become mainstream.

In fairness, this theory of Sunak’s ineptitude – now so validated by evidence it could almost be referred to as ‘the science’ – was first aired not by me but in a New Statesman blog before Sunak even became PM.

Back in February 2022, a Labour source told the Staggers that Keir Starmer’s team considered Sunak was ‘crap at politics’ and thought they would have the measure of him were he to replace Boris Johnson as PM. Labour’s reasoning lay in what it saw as Sunak’s flat-footed response to the cost-of-living crisis as chancellor. ‘Bring on little Rishi’, bragged a Labour insider back then.

Perhaps some Tory MPs thought this was an elaborate double-bluff by the red team, because that is exactly what they did – though his campaign to replace Boris Johnson was so error-strewn that it took them two defenestrations of sitting PMs to get him installed in Downing Street, rather than just the one.

One of the mistakes of Sunak’s campaign in his contest against Liz Truss was to come across as petulant and arrogant in a TV debate against her, making constant interruptions – traits that were on display again against Starmer this week. He also declared himself the only candidate who could beat Labour, rather than merely the candidate best able to do that – showing needless disrespect for colleagues. And video footage emerged of him boasting about how he made sure government spending was syphoned off from poor areas to prosperous ones.

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Once he arrived in Downing Street, barely a month went past without a fresh catalogue of Rishi blunders. For instance, in February of this year I documented a whole rash of howlers – from accepting an on-air rich boys’ frat house bet with Piers Morgan about removing illegal migrants to Rwanda, to making despatch box jibes about Keir Starmer’s approach to gender identity despite being told that the mother of a murdered trans child was in the public gallery, to being pictured hugging Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill, to issuing an almost flippant response to news of the King’s cancer – ‘I have no doubt he’ll be back to full strength in no time’.

It wasn’t just in his daily execution that Sunak was deficient. His lack of strategic nous was also blatantly obvious, evidenced when he told Paul Goodman of the Conservative Home website early in 2023 that voters were not that bothered about legal immigration levels. Oh really?

And right at the start of last year, he invited the British public to judge him on five key objectives. Three were economic metrics while the other two involved bringing down waits in the NHS and ‘stopping the boats’. Only one of the economic metrics has been properly achieved, while the numbers awaiting NHS treatment are higher and irregular migration via Channel dinghies is running at an all-time record level. How bad at politics do you have to be to specify your own preferred key performance indicators in such a way as to render them unachievable?

By November last year someone had persuaded him that it would be a good idea to sack Suella Braverman as Home Secretary and bring in David Cameron as Foreign Secretary. Had the Reform party been asked to devise a perfect Tory error, it could hardly have come up with anything more perfect.

That panic-ridden move followed Sunak using his keynote party conference speech in Manchester to scrap the HS2 route to…er…Manchester and to unveil as his two central ‘legacy’ policies a shake-up of A-levels that will probably never happen and a fiddly and gradualist plan to outlaw tobacco smoking that has already been ditched.

All the first order stuff Braverman warned him about in advance – from legal migration levels running out of control, to the deficiencies of his Rwanda legislation, to the need to nip Islamist ‘hate marches’ in the bud has been borne out by experience.

Yet fashionable opinion has only just moved on from declaring her a lightweight and thinking him the smartest political brain in any room. For the few remaining steadfast Tory tribalists out there, the next four weeks will probably be best viewed from behind a sofa.

Sunak’s D-Day departure was extraordinarily disrespectful

Rishi Sunak’s decision to leave Thursday’s 80th anniversary commemoration of D-Day in Normandy was extraordinary, stupid and disrespectful. He accompanied the King to a British ceremony at Ver-sur-Mer in the morning, at which Sir Keir Starmer, the leader of the opposition, was also present. But Sunak returned to the UK before the afternoon’s international event at Omaha Beach. It transpired that he spent the rest of the day recording an election campaign interview with ITV.

Downing Street sources have since told the BBC that the itinerary for 6 June was finalised several weeks ago, and that it had never been part of the plan for the prime minister to attend the Omaha Beach ceremony. Last month, the French government told the BBC that ‘Rishi Sunak’s presence is not guaranteed at the international ceremony, as the British ceremony will be held beforehand.’

Sunak’s defence, therefore, is that this was not an unplanned decision, nor was the interview with ITV a factor in the timing. Even if this turns out to be wholly truthful and accurate, it is the very definition of a technicality, and misses the point by a country mile.

Failing to attend a major commemoration of one of the most important events in recent history, during which 1,500 British service personnel were killed, is staggeringly disrespectful. Sunak was missing at a ceremony which US President Joe Biden, President Emmanuel Macron of France, the chancellor of Germany Olaf Scholz, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine and more than a dozen other heads of state and government had made time for. Let us be unmistakably clear: if that is the list of attendees, no British prime minister has a pressing need to be elsewhere.

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The prime minister’s absence was made more glaringly obvious by the fact that the UK was represented by the foreign secretary, Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton, who was photographed with Biden, Macron and Scholz. When Cameron returned to government late last year, some saw it as an admission by Sunak that the PM was uninterested in international relations, and there was anxiety that he might be overshadowed and diminished by his experienced predecessor. It was quickly being said in the Foreign Office that Cameron was effectively the ‘foreign affairs PM’.

The undoubted insult of an early departure was exacerbated by the fact that Sunak returned to London to record an explicitly political campaigning interview with ITV. The full encounter will not be screened for some days but clips released by the broadcaster show that the prime minister was defending his claim in this week’s televised election debate that a Labour government would raise taxes by £2,000 per household. The opposition have called the accusation a lie and the Treasury’s most senior civil servant has disavowed it. This contrast between the highs of international statecraft and the low of bare-knuckle electoral scrapping is stark and offensive.

The row is also, quite simply, stupid. The Conservative party had used the anniversary of D-Day to unveil a new range of policies to support armed forces veterans. Sunak has so far leaned heavily on an image of a patriotic leader who can be trusted with the nation’s security, in supposed contradistinction to Starmer. This furore has, at best, cancelled any benefit to be accrued from that. It also allowed the Labour leader to shake his head sadly at the prime minister’s apparent lack of commitment, and he told reporters ‘For me, there was nowhere else I was going to be.’ A bonus was Starmer being photographed with President Zelenskyy of Ukraine, reinforcing the Labour leader’s image as a substantial figure and premier in waiting.

Beyond that, this farce speaks of a deeper malaise. Nothing in politics happens in isolation: not only did the Prime Minister act in a foolish and disrespectful way, but several advisers must have signed off on his plans and if anyone raised an objection or even a suggestion that there might be reputational damage, it was not enough to force a change of plan. This is not Malcolm Tucker-level three-dimensional chess. An intern on his or her first day should have grasped intuitively that this looked dreadful. This forces us to one of two conclusions, neither of them good. Either the prime minister is being poorly advised, or he is not listening to his advisers.

Sunak has grudgingly apologised for Thursday’s absence, tweeting that ‘On reflection, that was a mistake and I apologise’. Disgracefully, however, he continued, ‘I think it’s important, though, given the enormity of the sacrifice made, that we don’t politicise this. The focus should rightly be on the veterans who gave so much.’

A thoughtless mistake became politicised the moment the prime minister sat down in front of ITV’s cameras on Thursday. It beggars belief that he is now trying to scramble towards the moral high ground. This was a massive error of judgement. Sunak, like any politician, cannot undo his actions, but he can and should be contrite.

Backlash grows over Sunak’s D-Day mistake

When Rishi Sunak’s team were mapping out this week, Wednesday and Thursday were viewed to be non-political days as the Prime Minister and most UK political leaders would be focusing on the D-Day commemorations. Yet somehow Sunak has found himself facing the biggest backlash of his campaign to date over his attendance at the anniversary. His decision to leave Normandy in the afternoon and therefore miss a ceremony on Omaha beach that world leaders – including Joe Biden – attended has been met with bafflement and anger by his own side.

As Isabel reports here, Sunak has this morning issued an apology for leaving early – ‘on reflection, it was a mistake not to stay in France longer – and I apologise’. It doesn’t help matters that the urgent business back at home appears to be a pre-record interview for ITV. This morning on the Sun’s ‘Never Mind the Ballots’ show, Johnny Mercer – the Veterans Minister – waded in, saying:

Obviously it’s a mistake. The PM on these visits receives a lot of advice on what he should and shouldn’t be doing. I’ve spoken to the Prime Minister this morning and obviously it’s disappointing, but I do find the faux outrage from people who’ve done nothing but make my life difficult trying to improve veterans affairs over the years is pretty nauseating, to be frank.’

Mercer goes on to say that ‘people are going to try and turn this into a big political moment’ but adds that ‘it should be borne in the context of what we’ve actually done for veterans’. So, how ‘big’ a political moment will be? Tory MPs this morning are in disbelief that this has happened – most have been WhatsApping expletives but one says it ‘shows the operation is not political’. The polling company Savanta’s Political Research Director Chris Hopkins says:

An embattled Conservative leader, seen as out of touch with ordinary voters, and leaking votes to Reform UK, frankly couldn’t have imagined a worse news story than leaving a D Day commemoration early after having allegedly not wanted to go at all.

It means it risks becoming a turning point in the campaign, a campaign that has already been hard going for the Tories. Tonight’s seven-way debate will be important. Reform’s Nigel Farage will be on primetime BBC debating Penny Mordaunt for the Tories and Angela Rayner for Labour. Farage is in the perfect position to go on the attack at the Conservatives, while Labour politicians have already been out doing so. Mordaunt – a former Naval Reservist – will have a job on her hands trying to stop the row from escalating further.

Listen to more analysis from Katy Balls on the Coffee House Shots podcast:

Greens investigate ‘antisemitic’ candidate posts

As the general election date creeps ever closer, the Green party has found itself in hot water. It transpires that the eco-zealots are currently investigating almost 20 candidates over ‘antisemitic’ insults and conspiracy theories — and party officials have a dossier of dirt on the parliamentary hopefuls. Oh dear…

In the latest election scandal, it turns out that the Green party is looking into candidates who have suggested the 7 October attack by Hamas was planned by Israel and compared Zionism to cancer. The revelations follow a councillor controversy, in which Leeds city council politician Mothin Ali was found to have labelled a rabbi a ‘creep’ and a ‘kind of animal’ — and posted on the day of the Hamas attack that ‘white supremacist European settler colonialism must end’. Meanwhile Adam Pugh, the candidate for London’s Deptford and Lewisham North constituency was found to have tweeted on 7 October that ‘there is no peace without freedom. Resist’ — and when other candidates were accused of antisemitism last week, Pugh wrote: ‘Either they haven’t discovered by tweets yet or I’m not being vocal enough.’ Golly.

As the deadline for general election nominations this afternoon looms closer, the eco-activists are doing their utmost to re-vet controversial candidates. Talk about leaving things to the last minute…

Four bets for Royal Ascot

As a keen follower of most sports, I like it when the ‘good guys’ do well. By the ‘good guys’, I mean the elite sportsmen (and women) who are humble about their achievements and who you feel you could enjoy a couple of pints with at the bar of your local pub.

In racing, I would be pretty sure that trainer Owen Burrows falls into this good-guy category. I have never met him but contacts of mine who know him well like him a great deal. He is knowledgeable, charming, straightforward and modest when interviewed on television too.

More importantly from the point of view of a punter, Burrows is an exceptionally talented trainer. He has an incredible 20 per cent strike rate from all his runners from the past five years – that’s because 93 of his 467 runners during that time have won.

That impressive strike rate, which even includes a tiny profit for backing every one of his runners to the same stake, comes despite the fact that the Lambourn handler is not afraid to aim his best horses at the biggest prizes, including the Classics and other Group 1s.

I am pretty sure Burrows is going to land a big pot sooner rather than later this season and I hope it will be with ALYANAABI in the Group 1 St James’s Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot on 18 June.

He finished fifth on his seasonal debut in the Qipco 2000 Guineas last month and will almost certainly have to reoppose one or more of the horses that beat him at Newmarket. However, he took a keen hold that day, raced on what was probably the less favoured side of the straight mile and he will come on for the run too. As many racing experts have already noted, the 2000 Guineas form looks rock solid too.

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All in all, 2000s Guineas winner Notable Speech is going to be hard to beat in the St James’s Palace but I am very happy to back Alyanaabi each way at 16-1 with either SkyBet or BetVictor, both paying three places. Odds of more than 3-1 for a place are generous and it is not impossible that the horse could win the race.

I have been taking a close look at most of the big Royal Ascot non-handicaps and another horse that I am sweet on is JASOUR in the Group 1 Commonwealth Cup on June 21.

Clive Cox’s three-year-old grey colt showed plenty of speed when, after a hold-up ride from Jim Crowley, he came from last to first to win the Group 3 Commonwealth Cup Trial Stakes. That race, too, showed that he can handle some cut in the ground as it was officially ‘good to soft’ at Ascot on May 1. The form of that contest has held up well too.

Jasour would not want to race in a bog – hopefully unlikely in late June – but anything from ‘good to soft’ to ‘good to firm’ will be fine. Vandeek and River Tiber head a long list of dangers, as well as Inisherin if, as expected, he is supplement for the race by Kevin Ryan and the owners.

However, back Jasour each way at 11-1 with Sky Bet in the hope he gets another fast-run race over six furlongs at Ascot and picks up his rivals one by one. He will face stiffer competition later this month than he did in early May but this horse looks a real improver for a yard that loves to have a Royal Ascot winner.

Ever since ISLE OF JURA went to Bahrain for our winter and won four of his five starts, Newmarket trainer George Scott has been hoping to aim his stable star at Royal Ascot’s Group 2 Hardwicke Sakes on 22 June. The handler cannot hide his admiration for this beautifully-bred, 17-hands-plus gelding, saying of him he’s ‘certainly the most exciting horse we’ve had for some time’.

The intention to target the Hardwicke was confirmed late last month when the four-year-old gelding cosily won the William Hill Festival Stakes at Goodwood over a mile and a quarter, thereby completing a four timer.

The Hardwicke is over a trip of two furlongs further and there are a few horses in the race who will have higher official ratings but a fast run race over a mile and a half should be just what Isle of Jura needs.

Scott is a young trainer deservedly making a name for himself and a Royal Ascot winner would be sweet compensation for the horse’s regular jockey Callum Shepherd, after being unceremoniously ‘jocked off’ Ambiente Friendly in last weekend’s Betfred Derby.

Back Isle of Jura each way with at 12-1, the price offered by most bookies, all of them offering three places. There are currently 28 runners entered in this race, which will have a maximum of 19 starters. However, this race often cuts up and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the field reduced to single figures in which case 12-1 could look a nice price on the day.

One word of warning, however: Isle of Jura needs fast ground to be at his best so he is unlikely to win, or even run, if the rain arrives in huge quantities ahead of the race.

I have saved the best until last. At this stage, I consider my top ante-post bet for Royal Ascot to be SHARTASH in the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes on June 22. This four-year old was gelded early this year and since then he has been a revelation for his new trainer, Archie Watson, winning both his two runs.

I love the fact, too, that he goes on all ground: it was ‘soft’ when he destroyed a decent field in a conditions race at Thirsk in April and it was ‘good to firm’ when he won a listed race at Haydock in May. Not being ground dependent is perfect for an ante-post bet.

After the horse’s latest run, Watson said: ‘Gelding him has been the key, I’ve never known more of a transformation with a horse for it.’ Don’t forget, too, this is the trainer who had an incredible three winners at Royal Ascot last year, including two in the sprints.

An official rating of 111 gives Shartash a few pounds to find with some of his likely rivals such as Kinross but, make no mistake, this horse is improving leaps and bounds with every run.

Shartash was available at 14-1 until early on Wednesday morning but then Pricewise, the Racing Post’s first-rate tipster, put him up so that blew away those odds. However, Shartash is still 10-1, three places, with Paddy Power, Betfair, Coral and Ladbrokes. With so much in his favour, I am still happy to put him up as an excellent each way bet for a race that is definitely his target despite his last two wins being over seven furlongs, not the six furlongs of this Royal Ascot race.

I have a couple of other strong fancies for big races at the royal meeting but they, like Isle of Jura, need fast ground in order to excel so, just in case our summer suddenly becomes as wet as our winter, I will keep my powder dry with these until nearer the day. I will also be looking closely at the handicaps once the entries for all the races are published.

As for tomorrow’s fare, I am going to put up just one bet and that is in the Betfred John of Gaunt Stakes (Haydock, 3.35pm). POPMASTER is tough, admirable and consistent over distance of either six or seven furlongs.

The six-year-old grey gelding improved throughout last season and then ran a fair race last time out when seventh, beaten just over two lengths, behind Wizard of Eye in the Lavazza & Ascot 10 Year Anniversary Victoria Cup, despite having a slightly troubled passage.

He steps up to Group 2 tomorrow in a strong 12-runner field but I just feel 20-1 is too big now that he is rated 108 and has the benefit of Saffie Osborne in the saddle. Back him each way at 20-1 with bet365, William Hill, BetVictor or Betfred, all paying four places.

Pending:

1 point each way Popmaster at 20-1 in the John of Gaunt Stakes, paying 1/5^th odds, 4 places.

1 point each way Alyanaabi at 16-1 in the St James’s Palace Stakes, paying 1/5^th odds, 3 places.

1 point each way Jasour at 11-1 in the Commonwealth Cup, paying 1/5^th odds, 3 places.

1 point each way Isle of Jura at 12-1 in the Hardwicke Stakes, paying 1/5^th odds, 3 places.

1 point each way Shartash at 10-1 in the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes, paying 1/5^th odds, 3 places.

Last weekend: + 5.3 points.

1 point each way Secret Satire at 12-1 in the Oaks, paying 1/5^th odds, 4 places. Unplaced. – 2 points.

1 point each way Breege at 15-2 in the Princess Elizabeth Stakes, paying 1/5^th odds, 3 places. 1^st. + 9 points.

1 point each way Ambiente Friendly at 13-2 in the Derby, paying 1/5^th odds, 4 places. 2^nd. + 0.3 points.

1 point each way Ghostwriter at 16-1 in the Prix du Jockey Club, paying 1/5^th odds, 3 places. 4^th. – 2 points.

2024 flat season running total + 11.1 points.

2023-4 jumps season: + 42.01 points on all tips.

2023 flat season: – 48.22 points on all tips.

2022-3 jumps season: + 54.3 points on all tips.

My gambling record for the past eight years: I have made a profit in 15 of the past 17 seasons to recommended bets. To a 1 point level stake over this period, the overall profit of has been 517 points. All bets are either 1 point each way or 2 points win (a ‘point’ is your chosen regular stake).

The Green party is terrifying

Is the Green party the most controversial force in British politics? It’s certainly giving Reform a run for its money. In the past few months, the Greens have suspended a former London Assembly member and two-time London mayoral candidate after he lamented that colleagues had denounced the Cass Review. After the local elections, one councillor sparked outrage by shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ to celebrate his victory. At the weekend, it was reported that three candidates for the party were no longer standing amid suggestions they made racist comments. What do traditional Green voters – those primarily driven by environmental concerns – make of these developments?  

Now there’s the backlash to their scandalous maternity policy. In the wake of the Ockenden Review and the Birth Trauma Inquiry, it has emerged the Greens have been promoting ‘natural’ deliveries and promising to reduce Caesarean sections. Yet it was precisely this mindset – that intervention ought to be delayed, despite the risks to patient safety – that led to the tragic deaths of 300 babies and 12 mothers at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust. The language of ‘normal’ or ‘natural’ births was formally dropped by the Royal College of Midwives in 2017, so why is the Green party still deploying it?

Perhaps it shouldn’t surprise us that the Greens want childbirth to become a non-medical event: the entire movement is hostile towards human progress, modernity and industrialisation. Caroline Lucas – the former Green leader – once declared we need to go cold turkey on our ‘addiction to economic growth’. Thanks to 14 years of Conservative government, we’re on our way. 

But the madness doesn’t stop there. The Greens want free school meals for all primary and secondary pupils – a measure the IFS has said would cost an additional £2.5 billion a year. They promise to provide 35 hours of free childcare for all children over nine months, regardless of parental means. How on earth do they square freebies for higher-income parents with their insistence the rich pay their ‘fair share’? 

They want rent controls, too – a policy which has failed everywhere it has been tried, most recently in Edinburgh, where the council has declared a housing crisis. Every time, rent controls lower both supply and quality: in Sweden, the average waiting time for an apartment rose to 11 years after price controls were imposed.

The Greens want a wealth tax which representatives claim could raise £40 to £50 billion when combined with levelling capital gains with income tax and removing the cap on National Insurance. Many OECD countries used to have wealth taxes but subsequently repealed them after discovering the administrative costs far outweighed the revenue raised, including Austria (in 1994), Denmark (in 1997), the Netherlands (in 2001), Finland, Iceland, and Luxembourg (all three in 2006). France introduced a wealth tax (in the 1980s) but later withdrew it. 

The Greens also want more money for the NHS, a healthcare system they appear to view as flawless but chronically underfunded. Yet the UK spends above the OECD average on healthcare as a proportion of GDP – and has very poor patient outcomes. The Greens boast they would stop the NHS from being ‘privatised’, but even if we include GPs, pharmacists, optometrists and dentists, spending on non-NHS providers still only accounts for about a quarter of its budget – a figure which has barely changed in recent decades.

It would be easy to shrug all this off; after all the Greens still only hold around 800 of 17,000 council seats in England and Lucas is its sole MP. But, astonishingly, they are polling higher among the under-50s than both the Tories and Reform. They deserve to be looked at more closely.

Perhaps, at the macro level, there is some coherence to the Green agenda: if their goal is a retreat from prosperity, then their approach to decarbonisation – where we ban, tax, and curtail freedoms (at one point the party wanted to ration meat and dairy products), clobber enterprise, block building – is probably an efficient way to achieve it. But they’re playing at politics. When they have had responsibility – as on Brighton council – it descends into disaster. Increases to parking fees imposed by the Green party in Brighton cost the city more than £1 million over three years, as visitors were put off from going to the seaside resort. They squandered £46 million on a 531ft eyesore tower which has failed to generate the anticipated visitor revenue, while their rewilding experiment led to 2ft weeds colonising Brighton and Hove’s streets.

The Scottish Greens’ transgender policy wrecked the SNP coalition. They lecture us about ‘fairness’ when degrowth will hit the poorest hardest. They persistently block housing developments, yet advocate uncontrolled immigration. Perhaps most baffling is their opposition to both nuclear and, on some occasions, local solar farms. They don’t want clean energy, they just want less energy.

The Greens might not be the most controversial presence in British politics; but they are without doubt the most terrifying.