THIS was the week when the widespread complaint about our major political parties – “They are all the bloody same!” – was no longer true.
Rishi Sunak has dared to challenge the orthodoxy of the new green religion.
We will not be banning the sale of new petrol and diesel cars five years before France and Germany.
The compulsory car pools are out.
The pause button has been pressed on the great purge of gas boilers.
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And finally, the Prime Minister looks like his own man.
None of the old charges against Rishi Sunak — Prada-wearing technocrat, passion-free PM in too-tight suits, caretaker-manager already checking flights to California — will stick any more.
In a country that is responsible for less than one per cent of the planet’s carbon emissions, Sunak will not ask you to pay a price that you can’t afford for an uncosted, undeliverable green fantasy you never voted for and don’t want.
You can love or loathe what Sunak has done.
But nobody can claim it is exactly the same as Labour policy.
Sunak has taken carefully calibrated baby steps back from the great unthinking, uncosted lemming-like rush to net zero.
He has injected common sense into the climate debate.
This is the triumph of reason over dogma.
From Broadcasting House to the House of Lords, you can hear the cries of outrage.
Sensible rethink
And what Sunak has done is truly bold, because it puts him at odds with all those pious, virtue-signalling windbags who want to stick their bossy snouts into every corner of your life.
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Bold, yes, but hardly reckless.
And certainly not radical.
Green MP Caroline Lucas calls Rishi’s rethink “an act of environmental vandalism”.
But by pushing the ban on new petrol and diesel cars back to 2035, Sunak is only putting the UK in line with Caroline’s beloved EU.
Is the policy of France and Germany environmental vandalism too, Caroline?
Eco zealots claim Sunak does not care about this overheating planet.
But the — legally binding! — 2050 deadline for net zero is unchanged.
Rishi has simply put himself firmly on the side of working people who care about the planet but who also care about paying their bills.
He has put himself at odds with those who would bully you out of driving, ban you from flying and tell you how you heat your home.
Last month, Greenpeace activists targeted Rishi Sunak’s family home, where his children sleep, and covered it in a black tarpaulin for his heresy of wanting to exploit the North Sea for oil and gas.
“Whose side are you on, Prime Minister?” Greenpeace shrilly demanded.
This week Sunak found the strength to say . . . not yours.
Rishi, I have never loved you more.
This sensible rethink on deadlines — all totally arbitrary, all totally uncosted — does not just put clear green water between Sunak and Starmer.
It also reveals the difference between Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson.
Some still pine for Bojo.
But the cruel fact is that our country is better off now that Boris has got on his e-bike and headed for the bright, sunlit uplands of the lucrative American lecture circuit.
It was not Just Stop Oil which decided that petrol and diesel motors would be banned in 2030.
It was Boris Johnson.
Bojo at his vapid, virtue-signalling worse.
That year was always unrealistic.
In fact, scribbling that date on the back of a packet of crisps was probably the most stupid thing that Boris ever did.
With a wonderful Churchillian flourish, Johnson sternly warned Sunak he “cannot afford to falter” on zero commitments.
Oh please.
Boris was fun while he lasted.
But now a grown-up is back in control.
Spare us the lectures on saving Planet Earth from a failed Prime Minister who did not even survive one term in office.
In countries that are the greatest polluters on Earth — China and the US — they do not hamstring their economies with barmy, totally random deadlines dreamed up by mediocre politicians like Ed Miliband and Boris.
So why do we?
No doubt the Americans and Chinese share our aspiration for a greener, cleaner world.
But that is what net zero should be.
A noble aspiration.
Rishi’s rethink on the random targets of the new green religion is not heresy.
To millions of Brits, it looks like common sense.
BOBBY BOOB?
STRICTLY’S Bobby Brazier says to Holly Willoughby with a laugh that he has never even seen the show.
Is it advisable to boast about doing a show you have never bothered to watch?
I recall boasting to my family that I had never seen Pointless just before appearing on the show.
I was knocked out in the first round, Bob.
LABOUR wants to widen the electorate to include 1.5million 16 and 17-year-olds.
Why not? In 1969 the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18.
The arguments against giving sprogs the vote were similar to those being advanced today – that youngsters know nothing of life.
But are the wrinklies really much wiser?
Conservative Party members – average age 57 – had to choose between Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak.
They chose Liz Truss.
And how did that work out?
French ties a treat
THAT was some party at the Palace of Versailles on Thursday night.
The speech that King Charles gave – in both French and English – moved me to the edge of tears.
We always think of President Macron as a Brexit-loathing enemy of the UK.
But what Charles said was true – nobody gave a more moving tribute to the late Queen than Macron, who called her “the golden thread that binds our nations” and flew the Union Jack at half-mast on the Elysee Palace.
It was a reminder that whatever the latest spats between the British and the French, more unites than divides us.
And what a guest list!
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And even on such a spectacularly starry night, British-French actress Charlotte Gainsbourg – the actress/singer daughter of Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg – made the red carpet her own.
And made you wonder why anyone would ever want to leave France.
MANCHESTER United’s new £47.2million goalkeeper, Andre “Butterfingers” Onana, let in a spectacularly soft goal against Harry Kane’s Bayern Munich.
But then Onana went on TV to say that his howler had cost his team the match.
Facing the cameras was hugely impressive.
And made me think that Onana will be a fixture at Old Trafford for many years to come.
Unless he does it again!
THE SS GOON SHOW
WHAT kind of idiot goes to a party dressed as a Nazi?
OK, apart from Prince Harry.
A group of men turned up to a 1940s celebration in Sheringham, Norfolk, dressed up in Nazi uniforms, including full Waffen SS regalia.
At least Harry could claim the stupidity of youth as his excuse.
These Nazi cosplay goons were grown men between 30 and 50.
“This regalia is extremely inappropriate, offensive and disrespectful,” said Graham Deans, organiser of the annual Sheringham 1940s Weekend.
“There were some very, very upset people in the town.”
Coming dressed as Nazis will now be banned from next year’s festival.
In their defence, the pretend Nazis claimed that they had previously raised money for war veterans.
Let’s hope it was not the kind of war veterans who fled to South America when the Red Army were bulldozing their way into Berlin.
AN 0P-EN BOOK
THE Super Models is a four-part documentary on Apple TV that has put Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista and Christy Turlington back into the public eye.
Some critics have complained that the doc is a bit thin.
But the fab four were not nuclear physicists.
They were models. They were beautiful.
As Linda Evangelista famously said, they didn’t get out of bed for less than ten grand. And, er, that was about it, really.
So if you watch The Super Models expecting Oppenheimer, you might be a tad disappointed.
