Ayesha Hazarika
(Picture: Daniel Hambury)While many of you are getting ready to (attempt) to jet off to a Greek island to get away from it all, I’m heading to Scotland. For me the cooler climes is the equivalent of going to the Caribbean. Many of us are in despair about the state of our nation as we brace ourselves for our fourth Prime Minister in just six years. The country feels like a basket case — nothing works and we live in fear of inflation, interest rate rises and bills going up.
We’re pondering the question: why do we get such poor political leadership? Well, look no further than the Conservative leadership race, which has less dignity than the Love Island final. Grinning winners Davide and Ekin-Su probably have more plausible economic policies. We’ve seen so many U-turns that it feels like a political roundabout. Rishi Sunak, having made a big deal about being the grown up, not indulging in fiscal fairy tales over irresponsible tax cuts, suddenly announced he would cut income tax by four per cent — the largest cut in 30 years. Not so much a U-turn, more political whiplash.
And it smacked of such desperation. Then yesterday, we had a spectacular reverse ferret from frontrunner Liz Truss, who had to scrap her plan to cut the pay of public-sector workers outside London. An idea about as popular as a fart in a lift lasted about as long but the stink will never be forgotten. I’m all for breaking away from Boris Johnson but Levelling Down?
We have reached the point where both candidates are simply making stuff up — and it’s worrying. With all the daunting challenges facing us, from the economy to the crisis in public services to geo-politics, we need serious people with depth, wisdom, and calm. Instead, we have two overexcited, increasingly hysterical candidates who are now just making things on the back of a fag packet.
To be fair to Truss, she has never pitched herself as the grown-up and has always been seen as eccentric. But Sunak has gone from slick, serious, swotty head boy to chucking out unworkable, ignorant ideas like charging people a tenner if they miss a GP appointment or ripping up the Equality Act. When you’ve pitched hard on the economy but you fumble for the culture war lever, you’re clearly losing.
Both candidates are clearly ambitious for themselves, but we need someone who is ambitious for the country. And if you need some political therapy and happen to be in Edinburgh, that’s where I’ll be doing a series of live shows musing on why our politics is in such a mess. Yep, I know how to have fun.
