Irish Examiner view: Sunak's party in a political cul-de-sac

It's not been a good time for the Conservative Party in Britain recently

British prime minister Rishi Sunak in Teesside, celebrating with Lord Ben Houchen following his re-election as Tees Valley Mayor, last Friday. Picture: Owen Humphreys/PA

Savage election reversals, immigration chaos, a crisis-ridden health service and multiple policies which have led the party up a political cul-de-sac. It’s not been a good time for the Conservative Party recently.

Badly mauled in the mayoral and local elections last week and heading into a general election, where it appears nothing other than ignominious voter rejection awaits, British prime minister Rishi Sunak and his embattled government seem paralysed by the realisation that only political doom is on their horizon.

The party which has ruled Britain since 2010 is deep in a morass largely of its own making, and there appears to be no chink of light for the Tories and little hope for redemption as its electorate continues to reject policies which have broken communities, impoverished families, and sundered public services into near obsolescence.

Having been told to “own and fix” last week’s election results by his own former home secretary, Suella Braverman, Sunak’s options are narrowing by the day, to the point where a small cadre of MPs are now pushing for hard right-wing policies such as an immigration cap and the scrapping of European human rights laws.

In such circumstances it is fair for politicians and their parties to "reflect on what voters are saying", but in Mr Sunak’s case the advice being proffered for a way forward for him and his party is, realistically, taking them further away from those the people want to see.

Unfortunately for the prime minister, the choices he faces and the decisions he will make are difficult ones: Does he take a swing to the left at the risk of advancing Labour and Liberal Democrat causes, or tack further to the right — a la Ms Braverman’s suggestion — to try and stave off a growing Reform UK threat?

The sad reality for Mr Sunak is that Tory infighting about factions and ideology has taken it away from concentrating on jobs, business, growth, housing, health, water and agriculture — the issues the electorate wants the party to focus on.

It is going to be a long, hard road.

US voters must choose wisely

At a time of much global political turmoil, it still seems incredible that Donald Trump is even in the running to be the next president of the United States.

Aside from his ongoing hush-money trial in New York which may result in him being convicted and maybe even jailed, Mr Trump’s recent iterations in Time magazine and at his stilted political rallies, points even more towards a dangerous authoritarian regime were he to be elected.

In a discursive — if thin on detail — interview with the magazine, Mr Trump indicated that he would send the country’s National Guard to round up and deport an estimated 11m undocumented migrants.

At the same time, he envisaged these men, women, and children being housed in vast detention camps while they awaited deportation.

That is not an America anyone knows — and especially most Americans — and crime-fearing citizens must be a little puzzled by his “yes, absolutely” pledge to consider pardoning those charged with or convicted of crime associated with the January 6 insurrection in Washington DC, which smashed through police lines and attempted to take over the American seat of democracy.

With fealty only to himself and other global "hard men" such as Vladimir Putin (who last weekend ordered his armies to undertake nuclear weapons drills) and Xi Jinping of China,  who is in Europe trying to undermine relations with America, Trump is a very dangerous and unstable commodity.

He may be able to hawk bibles, high-top sneakers, vodka, and more to his supporters, but politically there is little he can sell them other than chaos, mob rule, and disenfranchisement. US voters would want to consider their next step very carefully indeed.

Cuckoo's journey

Even at a time when humankind’s relationship with nature is at a precipice, there are still occasions when we can but marvel at the joys nature can bring.

One such occasion was the news of the returning Kerry cuckoo who had migrated to the Congo basin in Africa over the winter but was tracked back to his birthplace, Killarney National Park.

Cuach KP — the cuckoo’s ungainly name — was one of three tagged in Kerry in order to track their migration from Ireland to the rainforests of central Africa, and it is estimated that he covered some 9,000km in the course of his trip.

The National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) was able to track that Cuach KP left Ireland last summer, flying to the Congo basin, having made his way there across Britain, France, Spain, and much of the northern part of the African continent, later completing the return journey via Ghana, Sierra Leone, Spain, and a quick rest in Fermoy before arriving back to Killarney.

It is a story that resonated with many people, as well as the scientists studying cuckoo migration, and it magnified just how much knowledge we have yet to garner from the natural world and how much we depend on it for our own ends.

While cuckoo breeding had been well studied and reported upon, little was known of the birds’ migratory patterns or even where they wintered.

But now — and thanks to Cuach KP — we all know a lot more about the subject and of the mysteries of migration. Hopefully this is just a small part of the education we need to keep us aware of nature and our dependency on it.