Rishi Sunak’s bold conference speech was rallying cry for Tories to fight at the polls
Radical Rishi’s rallying cry
THE Sun has repeatedly urged Rishi Sunak to be bold. We are delighted he listened.
The Tories may be well adrift in the polls. But they will not succumb meekly to defeat. They intend to fight. Good.
It is a big ask for the PM to prove he is the “change candidate” after 13 Tory years. But he genuinely believes it.
He has spent his year in No10 calming economic turbulence. Now he aims to make his mark.
In a brave conference speech he reeled off one radical change after another.
HS2 will be axed beyond Birmingham and replaced by £36billion of new rail, road and bus systems branded Network North.
And bus fares will be held at £2.
What a genuine revolution it promises to be for the region, of far greater “levelling up” benefit than HS2 ever was.
This epic political vanity project was always a grotesque error even before endless delays and monstrous overspending rendered it a national disgrace.
And long before Covid and Zoom calls further eroded its case.
Even Labour’s Alistair Darling, Chancellor when HS2 was proposed in 2009, knew it was foolish and wanted it binned.
Its one saving grace is it WILL still run into central London. Without that, even the remaining leg would be pointless.
‘Life’ in jail will mean life
But culling HS2 was just the start of Mr Sunak’s barrage of common sense.
The public despairs that life terms don’t mean life. Now, for sex killers, they will.
The PM will bar anyone now 14 or below from EVER legally buying cigarettes.
We loathe the nanny state — but we’ll make an exception if it stops kids getting hooked, wipes out a deadly habit and saves the NHS billions.
In schools, the Tories will combine A-levels and job-focused T-levels into one single new qualification involving more subjects. That makes sense too.
On illegal migrants, the PM contrasted his potentially game-changing Rwanda scheme with Labour’s bizarre idea to take MORE from their Brussels allies.
On benefits, he vowed to end the staggering scandal of two million claimants being deemed incapable of ANY work.
On Brexit he highlighted the rewards the Tories are now reaping for Britain as Labour’s Remainers plot to neuter it.
He reminded us how he has already faced down his eco critics to delay our nonsensical first Net Zero deadlines.
And, to huge cheers, Mr Sunak spelled out that — unlike some Labour MPs — he is crystal clear that biological males can’t just self-identify as women.
One glaring omission will need equal boldness in the coming months, though:
Building enough homes to reignite the ownership dream for under-30s. Little has damaged the Tories more.
Fix that too and the PM has a fighting chance against a smug and complacent Labour Party dismally short on solutions . . . radical or otherwise.