Like Cincinnatus returning from his plough, Boris Johnson launched his election campaign last night with electrifying effect.
The party’s main electoral asset remains the Conservative leader. He made an impassioned appeal to all disillusioned Tory voters of 2019 to return to the party. If they don’t, he warns, the country faces a “Starmergeddon”.
Rishi Sunak may be far behind in the polls, but anyone who thinks a Labour supermajority is inevitable should consider this.
According to YouGov, if 34,000 voters switch to the Conservative Party in marginal constituencies, Sir Keir Starmer’s predicted majority of 200 would be halved. If 132,000 were to do so, he would lose it entirely.
That represents less than 0.3 per cent of those registered to vote, showing how vulnerable Labour’s lead is. There is very little love for Sir Keir in the country. Polls show he is neither trusted nor seen as capable of solving the country’s problems.
His current level of support is lower than that enjoyed by Jeremy Corbyn in 2017, but if those who voted Tory in 2019 do not wake up from their slumber, Sir Keir is on course for an unprecedented landslide victory and five years of almost unbridled power.
Be under no illusions about the economic and cultural damage he and Labour’s army of climate extremists, critical race theorists and class warriors could do in that time. Take his “green revolution” for example.
Having been largely kept on the sidelines during this campaign, Ed Miliband has appeared to denounce “climate delayers” (i.e. those who want to take a sensible approach to Net Zero to prevent Britain from going bankrupt).
Most ominously, he has promised to lead global efforts to tackle climate change. The idea that anyone regards Miliband as some kind of eminence or that he can take us anywhere but to misery is ludicrous. Yet in his Gadarene rush to decarbonise Britain, he may inflict enormous damage.
Penalising motorists with excessive taxes on fuel and emissions, forcing households to replace their gas boilers with expensive and inefficient heat pumps, higher green taxes on energy bills, covering the countryside with wind turbines, banning new drilling in the North Sea – the possibilities are endless.
Meanwhile, Reform UK continues to prove itself more of an echo chamber for angry protests than a serious political alternative.
Another candidate yesterday switched to the Conservatives after realising that the party is giving cover to intolerance and racism.
The Mail has long been an admirer of Nigel Farage, for his straight-talking and everyman rhetoric on migration and other issues of huge public interest, but in blaming the EU for Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine it has crossed a line.
Beyond him, the party is a facade, with no structure and no prospect of achieving anything. A vote for reform is a vote for the Starmer supermajority that all Conservatives should be desperate to avoid.
An interesting survey by Lord Ashcroft Polls suggests that more than 20 per cent of those who voted Conservative in 2019 are still undecided or will not vote. When pressed, three-quarters say they would prefer a Conservative government to a Labour one.
They might still manage it, but only if they vote Conservative tomorrow. If Boris can put aside the betrayals and disappointments of the past, so can they. They may think that voting for anyone else or not voting at all will be punishing the Conservatives. The truth is that they will be punishing themselves.
