On the Road to Nowhere

I'm almost embarrassed for the Conservative Party. While the Tories taking up the "cause" of the motorist was obvious after barely hanging on at the Uxbridge by-election, I wasn't quite anticipating how all in they're prepared to go. In a ridiculous interview with The Telegraph, Rishi Sunak tells Britain car owners that he's on "their side". Forgetting for the moment that motorists are also public sector workers, energy users, food shoppers, wage earners etc. Sunak is banking on those things that make drivers' lives a misery like, um, low traffic neighbourhoods, will re-ignite interest in the Tories. He says "When I’m lucky enough to get home to North Yorkshire, it’s more representative of how most of the country is living, where cars are important." Might he be on to something? After decades of attacks on public transport, outside of most towns and cities life without a car is very difficult. This is reflected in the number of cars on Britain's roads, which presently stand at 33.2 million. The Tory galaxy brain has surmised there is a voter pool here worth fishing in.

Sunak might talk about getting home to his constituency, but with his fondness for private jets and helicopters chances are it's not a run that's overfamiliar to him. Having difficulties with the very basic competencies of everyday life, and the old hoohah about keeping his Green Card are just episodes of an existence lived at a gilded remove from that of most people. The Tories know they have to make their man relatable, and waxing lyrical about the freedom and beauty of the car is one of them. Just don't mention that his garage must be bigger than most houses to store all four of the motors he owns.

Obviously, as the motorists' friend Sunak isn't about to announce lower petrol prices or anything that might help purses and wallets. But what it prepares the ground for is a link between traffic calming measures, the Boris Johnson-originated ultra low emission zone in London, green taxes and, ultimately, Britain's energy security. In a typically dishonest attack on Keir Starmer, he pushes further along with the attempt to frighten receptive punters about what a Labour government will mean. I.e. Less energy security, more dependence on Putin's Russia for energy, and fewer well-paying oil jobs in the North Sea. I'm shocked, shocked I tell you that the Tories are yet again pushing fossil fuel interests. As ever, they affect to help the little guy while servicing the big guy.

This new strategy can't be isolated from everything else they're doing. Becoming the motorists' party shares the lane with also being the anti-woke party, and the anti-refugee party. The outlines of the populist campaign the Tories want to run between now and the next election are visible for all to see. In the absence of Brexit and anything substantial to hang off the Labour leader, the briefcase "sensible" Sunak is trying to introduce multiple wedge issues that oppose groups of unsullied people against undesirable others and their constant ally, the liberal/remain/woke elite. In each case, through a combination of Tory rhetoric, policy positioning, and media framing the Tories are trying to summon forth angry collectives who are exercised by these issues to the exclusion of all else. The problem they have is Sunak is singularly ill-suited to being the figurehead of such a campaign (especially when internal opposition occasionally threatens to seize the wheel), and as a rule the public are actually not minded to ignore stagnating wages and the galloping cost of living. Which is what the by-elections the Tories are choosing to ignore have decidedly told us.

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