MAIL ON SUNDAY COMMENT: Always remember your base, Boris
A lot of by-elections don't matter. They pop and vanish like soap bubbles in no time at all. They are predictable rebellions by voters who will be equally predictable in returning to their old allegiances once the General Election comes round. But Friday's Tory defeat at Chesham and Amersham is not one of those. Nobody saw it coming. Silent, sudden revolts of this kind spell real danger.
Driving HS2 through a beloved landscape, when its superfast trains will not even stop there, was always a theoretical risk. But now, with work so far advanced that halting the plan is almost impossible, this result has made it a persistent headache for Downing Street, for which there is no obvious cure.
Deeper still is the growing grumbling of rural and suburban Tories against the relaxation of the planning laws. People who have worked and saved for years for a little share of peace and space suddenly feel threatened in the very place where they once felt safe. Local control over development has been significantly weakened. Tory voters rightly ask why a party whose deepest roots are in the countryside and the leafy avenues of Britain should have become a cheerleader for concrete development and high-rise towers.
It is all very well to continue taking seats from Labour in the North. But there is no point in doing so if the Tories start losing in the South. Always remember your base, Boris. In the end, nothing matters more
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And who knows if the Amersham vote was not also affected by the decision to drag on Covid restrictions for another month? Heathrow Airport is nearby, and many of those put out of work or out of business by lockdown live there.
It is all very well to continue taking seats from Labour in the North. But there is no point in doing so if the Tories start losing in the South. Always remember your base, Boris. In the end, nothing matters more.
How can this absurd travel ban possibly be justified?
The continued blockage of most foreign holidays continues to blight many businesses and to make life in general less pleasant than it should be. Why? Plenty of highly responsible people, including the former Prime Minister Theresa May, are baffled by it, as are many ordinary members of the public. What is it supposed to achieve? What reasonable basis is there for continuing it?
A significant number of people have now decided to accept the Government rules as a sort of tax in money and inconvenience, which they reluctantly pay. They hand over vast, inflated fees (what happened to Government promises that these would be brought down?) for multiple nasal swabs. It is necessary for a double-vaccinated person, who travels to a Covid-free Greek island and back, and wants to keep self-isolation to a minimum, to undergo five such tests.
The continued blockage of most foreign holidays continues to blight many businesses and to make life in general less pleasant than it should be. Why? Plenty of highly responsible people, including the former Prime Minister Theresa May, are baffled by it, as are many ordinary members of the public. What is it supposed to achieve? What reasonable basis is there for continuing it?
They sacrifice many days of precious holiday for quarantine periods when they come home. They endure petty officials banging on their doors to check that they are isolating themselves properly.
But millions cannot do this, or quite reasonably think the burden is too heavy. The huge success of the vaccine programme is simply not being used, by a government in thrall to risk-averse, unaccountable officials. Who is in charge here? Holidays are good for those who take them, an innocent, mind-expanding pleasure. They are good for business. Do Boris and Carrie Johnson not themselves dream of sitting in the Mediterranean sun by the never-resting, wine-dark sea, with a chilled glass of something delicious at their elbows? Of course they do. But unlike the rest of us, the Prime Minister has the power to free millions, himself included, to fulfil this harmless, happy dream. He should do so.
