Rishi Sunak has brandished the starting gun for the election, but “cutting the green crap” has misfired badly.
The national mood is unlikely to improve in such a long campaign, where nothing serious is done beyond his striving for futile and destructive “dividing lines”. Public confidence in elections has plunged since 2021, according to the Electoral Commission. Due partly to years of deliberate voter suppression, as many as 8 million people are now not registered to vote. Who is surprised that this Tory government’s legacy will be a steep decline in trust in the working of democracy itself?
