“TAX cuts! Tax cuts!” parroted panic-stricken Tories as by-election voters abandoned their party in Tamworth and Mid Beds.
Rattled MPs insist Rishi Sunak must slash inheritance tax or stamp duty to give his party an outside chance at the general election.
Guys, it’s too late. You’ve been overtaken by events.
Don’t you know there’s a bloody war on?
By the next election — or even this week — we won’t be talking about tax cuts or building new houses.
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We’ll be talking about Israeli tanks crushing depraved Hamas murderers in Gaza.
The only democracy in the Middle East, where the human rights of women and gay men are taken for granted, will be fighting for its life against regimes which despise both.
But its show of force will inevitably raise the terrifying prospect of a much wider war.
Now is the time for Tories to remember the first duty of government — to defend the country.
And that could replace tax cuts as the vote winner.
The Western world has been caught short.
We squandered the so-called “peace dividend” following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
We dropped our guard despite evidence that Russia, China and Iran pose the biggest threat to global security since the last world war.
If there is any money in the cash-strapped Treasury we must spend it now to avoid what looks dangerously like the next one.
We need state-of-the-art warplanes on the empty decks of the UK’s two accident-prone aircraft carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales.
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We need helicopters and submarines.
Most of all we need to recruit and train soldiers for our dilapidated armed services.
Ominously, as the Middle East brews up, China is assessing Joe Biden’s doddering leadership of the free world and Kremlin boss Vladimir Putin is rubbing his hands over Ukraine.
Terror alert
Ex-Tory defence secretary Ben Wallace, the first to predict Russia’s invasion, saw all this coming.
“By the end of the decade, the world will be a more dangerous, unstable place and defence will be more critical to our lives,” he said in May.
“The world is seeing the end of an abnormal period of peace. I think a conflict is coming with a range of adversaries around the world.
“We need to all be prepared for it.”
Britain, justly, has backed Israel’s right to defend itself and vowed to help it win.
That makes us prime targets for retaliation if it spins out of control.
We cannot ignore the threat from home-grown killers.
Security services were poised last night to raise the terror alert to its highest level after a series of incidents over the weekend.
“Mostly peaceful” marches by 100,000 pro-Palestinian flag wavers revealed not just sympathy for Gaza’s stricken civilians but alarming support for wiping Israel off the face of the earth.
Passengers were terrified this weekend when a London Tube train crammed with protesters was effectively hijacked by the driver, who urged passengers to chant “Free, free Palestine”.
For the first time in months, rail bosses are Tannoying travellers to stay alert for abandoned luggage.
‘Deeply split’
Not for the first time in their history, Jews cannot feel safe on the streets.
Random shootings and stabbings in Brussels and Arras have stoked tensions across Europe.
Bouncy French President Emmanuel Macron has gone silent rather than antagonise his Muslim citizens.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer faces fierce criticism from community leaders and some Labour MPs for daring to throw his party’s weight behind Israel against Hamas.
Protesters have been filmed outside Labour HQ shouting: “Labour Party blood on your hands.”
Many fondly recall ex-leader Jeremy Corbyn’s support for Hamas and Hezbollah as “friends” — and Starmer’s own devotion to Corbyn despite his rampant anti-Semitism.
“Labour is deeply split,” says a shrewd Tory observer. “Many believe the needs of the Palestinians have not been met. Most Labour backbenchers feel this way.
“This goes well beyond Corbyn and it is not a minority.”
Strengthening our defences is not just the right thing to do in these troubled times. It is a key plank of Tory policy.
Keir Starmer, by contrast, will find it a tough sell to his peacenik Labour Party in the run-up to a general election.