Friday, January 06, 2023

It’s time to put youth at the top of the climate agenda

Education is integral to involve more young people to design a climate resilient future

I was recently asked to write a foreword to a popular children’s book that brings the issues of climate change, energy and resource preservation to primary school learners. For me, engaging young people on the topics of climate, sustainability and the environment is crucial. So, of course, I gladly accepted the invitation.

As I was considering what to write, and importantly, how to write, about the importance of renewable energy in a way that seven-12-year-olds would understand, it occurred to me that this thought process has been too far away from the mainstream thinking around the energy transition and climate dialogues.

How often have we considered climate action through the lens of the seven-year-old who might be studying for a Stem degree in 10 years? How frequently have Cop agendas been designed to include the 15-year-olds who can see the world without the red tape that too often prevents progress? How many policies have been designed with inputs from the undergraduate or post-graduate students who have dedicated their formative years to learning from the most recent academic research into the fields of energy, climate and sustainability?

A child sits by his home at the Chebayesh marsh, Dhi Qar province, in Iraq, on August 15, 2021. Reuters

The answer, whichever way you look at it, is: not enough.

More than three decades of high-level global climate meetings have pushed the youth perspective to the margins. And yet, emissions have not reduced, they have increased. The number of people displaced by extreme weather event has not reduced, it has increased. The urgency for climate action has not abated, it’s exacerbated.

It’s time that changed. It’s time that we found new ways to harness the innate innovative mindset of our youth and engaged them in the decisions that will ultimately shape the world they inherit.

Climate action is clearly at the top of the youth agenda. It’s time that youth were at the top of the climate agenda

Today, almost one third of the global population is below the age of 20. More specifically, there are 1.2 billion people between 15-24 – the age demographic that the UN defines as “youth” – which alone represents 16 per cent of the total population. That such a large percentage of people have, until recently, not had a say on the decisions and policies being made to protect the planet they will inherit is both astonishing and myopic.

Finding a balance is the key. We should always be open to every perspective. We miss out on the value that people can offer when we narrow our expectations of where it can come from. We should be as open to the dynamism, optimism and exuberance of youth, as we should be to the pragmatism and practicalities of experienced professionals.

Britain's Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, plants trees alongside two school children as he tours Abu Dhabi's wetlands at the Jubail Mangrove Park during an official visit to the UAE on February 10, 2022. PA Wire

Young people today are more engaged on climate change that at any time previously. According to UN research, people between the ages of 18 and 35 consider climate change to be a global emergency. This figure increases to 69 per cent among under 18-year-olds.

Climate action is clearly at the top of the youth agenda. It’s time that youth were at the top of the climate agenda.

With the 13th International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) General Assembly, Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week and Cop28 all set to take place in the UAE in 2023, we have an opportunity to elevate the role of youth and set the precedent for a future of inclusive climate and energy dialogues.

In this sense, the UAE and Irena will be building on decades of groundwork that has gone into engaging and empowering global, regional and local youth, and setting out before them a pathway to move from youth leaders to climate leaders and decision makers.

On January 13, ahead of the Irena General Assembly on the following two days, the Fourth Irena Youth Forum will once again bring the new generation of decision makers to the table, strengthen youth networks and connect them with global thought leaders, government representatives, and Irena experts.

The Forum will create a space for young people to contribute to the Agency’s mission of accelerating renewable energy deployment to achieve climate objectives and advance the sustainable development agenda.

Directly following the Irena General Assembly, the Youth 4 Sustainability forum will see a higher participation of young people than ever with 20 youth energy leaders participating in the event, in addition to 40 young people engaged in the Zayed Sustainability Prize heading to Abu Dhabi for the Sustainability Week.

What was it like to be a young climate activist at Cop27?

Together, the Irena Youth Forum and the Prize are designed to showcase the novel and innovative ways young people approach our biggest climate and energy challenges, which we would not have access to if we hadn’t proactively worked to give them a seat at the table.

Education is integral to the process of involving more young people in designing more holistic, inclusive solutions for a climate resilient future.

The most recent example of our collaborative action on youth engagement was the launch of the Energy Transition Education Network that was announced at Cop27 in Sharm El Sheikh.

The Network aims to develop a sprawling network of primary, high school and higher education teachers, who are plugged into the latest academic and pedagogical knowledge, that they can then adapt and transfer to their students in classrooms across the world, to create novel curriculum-relevant resources that bring the energy transition to life in an accessible and engaging way.

To complete this youth-to-decision maker pathway, we must create meaningful jobs and careers. In 2021, worldwide employment in the renewable energy sector alone reached 12.7 million – up from 12 million the year before.

And according to Irena’s 1.5°C pathway, outlined it its World Energy Transitions Outlook, 122 million energy sector jobs will be available globally by 2050. Filling those jobs with the right, qualified and adaptable talent will be crucial to decarbonising our planet and building a sustainable future.

MORE FROM NAWAL AL HOSANY

The Irena Student Leaders Programme offers one way that we can ready this workforce of the future. Designed to respond to the growing youth interest in renewables, the Programme prepares them to become the next generation of energy professionals through extra-curricular courses, seminars and assignments – which range from the technologies needed to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy projects to the analysis models that Irena uses to monitor renewable energy progress.

As we convene and connect with the international community in the year ahead, with the UAE playing a central global role in driving climate action and the energy transition, we must keep our youth at the top of our mind.

We must also remember that it is not our planet that won’t survive if climate change continues unchecked. It is us. Our sons and daughters. Grandsons and granddaughters. Nieces and nephews. People. Humanity. It’s us that won’t survive.

How do we tell future generations this story? If this is not the story we want to tell, how do we change the ending?

We begin by including, involving and fully integrating those who will be most affected by the consequences: our youth. It is our duty to pass the pen to them to continue the story of humanity, with a narrative that they get to write, with every possible course of action still available to them.

Published: January 05, 2023
Nawal Al-Hosany

Nawal Al-Hosany

Dr Nawal Al-Hosany is permanent representative of the UAE to the International Renewable Energy Agency


TWO GLOBAL SPREADERS
COVID-19: Nigeria dreads another wave, monitors rising cases of new variants in China, US



COVID-19 Alert


The NCDC reiterated that the most important action for Nigerians is to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

ByMariam Ileyemi
January 5, 2023

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has said its COVID-19 Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) is monitoring COVID-19 trends in countries with a “high volume of traffic to and from Nigeria.”

The NCDC noted in a statement Wednesday that the countries which include China, the United States of America (USA), the United Kingdom (UK), South Africa and India, are currently battling with the rise in Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variant and its lineages, dominating recorded infections worldwide.

It added that its EOC is also monitoring the resurgence of COVID-19 in China following the relaxation of the country’s zero-COVID policy, and the increased COVID-19 cases, admissions, and deaths in the UK and the USA over the past weeks driven by the usual winter exacerbations of respiratory illnesses.

The disease control centre also raised concern that the new Omicron sub-lineages XBB.1.5 in the UK and the US, and BF.7 in China “may spread faster than older Omicron sub-lineages (e.g., XBB or BQ) and that they are responsible in part for the current increases in cases, hospitalisations, and deaths”.
New variants not in Nigeria

While the NCDC confirmed that the sub-lineages that are partly responsible for the current increase in COVID-19 cases in otherwise countries (XBB.1.5 and BF.7) have not yet been detected in Nigeria, it noted that “the B.5.2.1 has been seen since July 2022 and the others are most likely here already”.

It added that “the BF.7 and XBB have also been circulating in South Africa since October 2022 but without any accompanying increase in cases, severe illness, or deaths.”

NCDC further noted that since the detection of the Omicron variant in December 2021, its sub-lineage (BQ.1/BQ.1.1) has been dominant in Nigeria, but “none of these dominant sub-lineages in Nigeria that are also circulating elsewhere has been associated with any increases in case numbers, admissions, or deaths locally.”
Statistics

As of 5 January, data from NCDC shows that a total of 266,450 infections and 3,155 deaths have been recorded across Nigeria’s 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, while 661,019,881 infections and 6,692,005 deaths have been confirmed globally according to WHO.
Unvaccinated at risk

On vaccination, the NCDC reiterated that the most important action for Nigerians is to get vaccinated against COVID-19, “as the vaccine is the most important intervention for preventing severe disease, hospitalisation, and death.”

It added that “regardless of COVID-19 variants in different parts of the world, severe disease, admissions and deaths disproportionately affect the unvaccinated and those with established risk factors”, like older people, people with co-morbidities and the immunocompromised.

READ ALSO: SPECIAL REPORT: How religion spurred high COVID-19 vaccination in Kano (1)

The disease control centre said that though the COVID-19 protocols and restrictions may have been eased, people at high risk should continue to adhere to the recommended nonpharmaceutical intervention (NPIs) such as the use of face masks, good hand and respiratory hygiene and avoidance of crowded spaces.

It also established that the Omicron sub-lineages that were associated with increases in cases, admissions and deaths elsewhere did not cause the same in Nigeria because the population is significantly protected from a combination of natural immunity and vaccination with vaccines with a high impact on hospitalisation, and deaths.
UK

EXCLUSIVE:
Missing health chief Steve Barclay spotted as pressure mounts over NHS crisis

Health Secretary Steve Barclay has been accused of being all-but absent during recent weeks, as NHS staff took historic industrial action and ambulances queue up outside hospitals


Health Secretary Steve Barclay has been under fire over the crisis gripping the NHS 
 Ian Vogler / Daily Mirror


Matthew Young
News Reporter
Lizzy Buchan
Deputy Online Political Editor
5 Jan 2023

Missing Health Secretary Steve Barclay was this morning pictured bright and early heading into the Department of Health.

He has been all-but absent during recent weeks, as NHS staff took historic industrial action and as ambulances queue up outside hospitals.


After PM Rishi Sunak yesterday promised action on NHS waiting lists, Mr Barclay was this morning whisked into the back entrance of the Department of Health in his chauffeur-driven, ministerial car shortly before 7am.

Both Mr Sunak and his health chief had been accused of going missing in action amid the crisis gripping the NHS over the festive period.

Mr Barclay finally broke cover on Tuesday and attempted to shift blame for the escalating pressures on the health service onto Covid, Strep A and flu.

Sunak ‘detached from reality’ as PM fails to offer hope for crumbling NHS in speech

Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Steve Barclay arrives for work at the Department of Health today (Image: Ian Vogler / Daily Mirror)

The Health Secretary admitted the disastrous situation in the health service was not acceptable.

But he said "a combination of very high rates of flu, persistent and high levels of COVID, continuing concerns particularly among many parents around Strep A" were at the root of the "massive pressures" faced by the NHS over Christmas.

He told broadcasters: "There's £500 million of investment this year going into tackling the pressure in terms of social care. So we're putting more funding in. We've got more clinicians, we've got more staff working in the NHS.


"Of course there's a range of factors that we need to do. There's been particular pressures over Christmas because we've had a surge in flu cases, Covid cases and also a lot of concern around Strep A."

But he failed to address the pleas from medics for more support, who warn that a decade of Tory cuts have left the NHS on the brink of collapse.

FROM THE HORSES MOUTH

How the Catholic Church influenced the pro-life movement

END THEIR CHARITABLE STATUS IN US & CANADA

Experts see Dobbs decision as an opportunity to call on pro-life movement to embrace Church's teachings on human life



Abortion rights activists protest as guests arrive for the Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life Americas annual gala and fundraising dinner at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC, on Sept. 13, 2022. (Photo: AFP)

By Kate Scanlon, OSV News
Published: January 04, 2023 04:58 AM GMT

While the nation's legal landscape regarding abortion has changed after the U.S. Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling in June 2022, the church's pro-life advocacy has entered a new phase. But this is nothing new for the church and members of the faithful who have long been key players in efforts to oppose expanded abortion laws.

In fact, early efforts to oppose broadening the practice of abortion in the United States were largely driven by Catholics.

Historian Daniel K. Williams, author of "Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-life Movement before Roe v. Wade," told OSV News in an interview that when abortion liberalization laws were proposed in the mid-1960s, "the overwhelming majority of the people speaking out against those bills were Catholic."

"Even in the early 1970s, the movement was probably more than 80% Catholic," Williams said.

Most of the pro-life organizations that formed in the mid to late 1960s and early 1970s were in northern states in traditionally Catholic areas, "which were also strongly Democratic constituencies," he said.

"Many of the pro-life activists approached the subject of abortion from the standpoint of a broader Catholic social ethic that viewed prohibitions on abortion as one piece of a larger concern for the poor and marginalized, one piece of a larger campaign for a society that would ensure human flourishing," he said.

Those activists were dismayed that, in their view, a right to life was being challenged by these proposals, he said. They campaigned against them with a message of a package of rights closely tied to the philosophies behind the New Deal and the Great Society. These same activists were also often staunch opponents of the Vietnam War.

As early as the late 1940s, Williams said, when the nation's U.S. Catholic bishops created a model list of human rights, "they started with the right to life, but then they also included the right to an education, the right to protection of labor unions, the right to a living wage."

When the U.S. Supreme Court issued its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, abortion opponents included Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts "and even some liberals who were not Catholic, like Jesse Jackson, and many African Americans were strongly opposed to abortion in the 1970s," Williams said.

At the same time, many prominent Republicans, such as first lady Betty Ford and the future Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, were supportive of legalized abortion.

After Roe, however, the Democratic Party was largely split on the issue of abortion due to its pro-choice feminist and pro-life Catholic factions, and it avoided taking a firm position on the ruling. This paved the way for abortion opponents to form an alliance with Republicans instead.

In the 1980s, Williams said, the Republican Party and pro-life activists embraced a judicial strategy to change or reverse Roe "not through a constitutional amendment, but through the Supreme Court, by conservative appointments to the Supreme Court, that really did have an effect and brought the pro-life movement into closer alliance with the Republican Party building on that foundation that was already laid."

By the late 1980s and 1990s, Williams said, a "significant difference between the two parties in terms of their congressional delegations, regarding the abortion issue" began to emerge in ways they had not before.

Over the course of the 1980s, millions of socially conservative evangelicals came eventually to join Catholics in opposition to abortion.

"They embraced a lot of the traditional pro-life thinking but processed that through the lens of a different set of political commitments," Williams said, specifically "a desire to see secularization and the sexual revolution reversed in society" as opposed to Catholics' broader social justice ethic.

Mary FioRito, a Catholic commentator and Cardinal Francis George Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., told OSV News that abortion is not a Catholic issue but a human rights issue. She said the Catholic Church and its members were poised to take the issue on as a part of the church's social justice work. Meanwhile, the position was guided by the church's intellectual tradition, which "equipped it with really good lawyers and other advocates, scientists, doctors who could help argue the pro-life case in the public square," she said.

FioRito pointed to the late Pennsylvania Gov. Robert Casey, a Catholic Democrat, who signed a state law requiring parental consent and a 24-hour waiting period for an abortion in his first term. Planned Parenthood challenged that law, leading to the Supreme Court case Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey. The Supreme Court upheld legal abortion as part of a constitutional right to privacy in a 1992 ruling. Along with Roe v. Wade, that ruling was also struck down with the court's Dobbs ruling.

Olivia Gans Turner, a Catholic and president of the Virginia Society for Human Life, a state affiliate of the National Right to Life Committee, told OSV News that her group is non-sectarian, and is "focused on the scientific reality that everybody can be pro-life because everybody's life starts the same way at the moment of fertilization."

But Catholic pro-life efforts, she said, are "companionable" to such a focus, because both recognize abortion is an act of violence against a child that can also lead to psychological damage to mothers and fathers.

One of the foremost examples of this, she explained, was Project Rachel founder Vicki Thorn, who passed away in April 2022. Thorn was an influential part of the Catholic Church's pro-life advocacy by ministering to women who had undergone abortions.

FioRito agreed and said Thorn demonstrated "tremendous compassion," and her efforts with Project Rachel helped "sensitize people not to be judgmental about women who've had abortions." Thorn's witness helped the pro-life movement recognize that many women experience various types of coercion prior to an abortion, whether from a partner or even from their parents or employers.

Experts see the Dobbs decision as an opportunity for Catholic scholars and leaders to call on the pro-life movement to embrace the totality of the Church's teachings on human life -- not solely opposition to abortion -- in its efforts to build a culture of life.

O. Carter Snead, director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture and Professor of Law and concurrent professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame, told OSV News partisanship surrounding abortion as a political issue has led to criticism of the church or the U.S. bishops as singularly focused on abortion.

"It has always been the case that the Catholic Church has been a strong witness in favor of life," Snead said, noting that many bishops and Catholics do see abortion as a "unique problem that does require a sustained response," but the church never abandoned its other social welfare efforts. He said the U.S. bishops are "doing work on immigration, poverty, health care, war, racism, and all these other very deep and important questions."

In fact, the Catholic message coming out of the U.S. bishops' fall assembly contained a warning that without "radical solidarity" for both mothers and babies in the wake of the Dobbs ruling, the church and pro-life movement could face a situation where they won the fight to overturn Roe, only to lose the overall struggle for a culture of life.

In his Nov. 15 address to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, conference vice president Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore said the Church “cannot remain silent about abortion” but it cannot afford to ignore “the deep social problems that push women toward having an abortion.”

“Our commitment to help mothers bring their babies to term," he said, "is wholly compatible with our commitment to work for a society in which both mother and child can flourish."

Ecuador, Japan, Malta, Mozambique and Switzerland join UN Security Council
The UN Security Council Tuesday welcomed new members Ecuador, Japan, Malta, Mozambique and Switzerland. This is the first time Mozambique and Switzerland have held seats in the security council.

The council consists of 15 countries. Five of them–China, France, Russia, the UK and the US–are permanent members with veto powers. The other ten members are elected by the 193-nation General Assembly for two-year terms, allocated by whatever global region the countries are located in.

Japan UN Ambassador Kimihiro Ishikane, President of the Security Council for January, commented at the flag ceremony on the need to “uphold the rule of law and consider what we can do for the many people whose security and livelihoods are under threat today.” Ishikane said there were three key elements to success in the role:

Firstly, an active contribution to global peace and security. Secondly addressing the common challenges of international community based on the idea of human security. Thirdly, strengthening the rule of law.

The council, which takes the lead in determining the existence of a threat to the peace or act of aggression, is the only UN body authorized to use force to maintain or restore international peace and security. The council can also authorize sanctions, but according to the UN’s website, the council “calls upon the parties to a dispute to settle it by peaceful means and recommends methods of adjustment or terms of settlement.”

UN News reported that 192 UN Member States participated in the election.  The five newly-elected countries are taking the place of India, Ireland, Kenya, Mexico and Norway. Their terms ended December 31, 2021. The newly-elected countries will join Albania, Brazil, Gabon, Ghana and the United Arab Emirates around the UN Security Council’s signature horseshoe table.

Legality of Israel’s occupation referred to UN court

Maureen Clare Murphy 
5 January 2023


Israeli settlers attempt to establish a new settlement in the northern West Bank in October 2015. Yotam RonenActiveStills

Last week, the UN General Assembly voted in favor of requesting an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice on the legality of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank – including East Jerusalem – and Gaza.

The resolution asks the court to set out the legal consequences of Israel’s violation of Palestinians’ right to self-determination and its prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation of Palestinian land since 1967.

This includes “measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status” of Jerusalem and the “adoption of discriminatory legislation and measures.”

The resolution also asks the court to determine “the legal consequences that arise for all states and the United Nations” as a result of its findings.

The International Court of Justice is the UN’s tribunal for settling legal disputes submitted by states and requests for advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it through the UN system.

Though both are based in The Hague, the International Court of Justice is a separate body from the International Criminal Court, which opened an investigation into the human rights situation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip last year.

Advisory opinions issued by the ICJ are non-binding.

Ignored

This will not be the first time that the ICJ has weighed in on Israel’s activities in occupied Palestinian territory.

In 2004, the court ruled that Israel’s construction of a massive wall in the occupied West Bank was illegal and must be stopped immediately and that reparations should be made for damage caused.

The 2004 advisory opinion had little effect on the ground in Palestine and is one of many recommendations made by UN organs concerning Israel’s violations of Palestinian rights that has gone ignored – both by Israel and third states.

Ahead of last week’s vote, the Palestinian Human Rights Organization Council stated that despite the limited material effect of the 2004 advisory opinion, “the case supported the undeniable right of the Palestinian people to their self-determination under international law and emphasizes the illegality of all annexations and settlements.”

Additionally, the court’s 2004 ruling found that Israel’s wall in the West Bank amounted to de facto annexation of occupied territory.

Al-Haq, a leading Palestinian human rights group, said that the new advisory opinion “may incur, for the first time, important obligations on third states and the international community to bring the occupation to an end.”

Palestinian human rights groups championed the resolution, which was drafted by the UN’s Special Political and Decolonization Committee and then submitted to the General Assembly.

Al Mezan, a Palestinian rights group based in Gaza, said that the adoption of the resolution “is a significant milestone in the struggle against Israel’s apartheid settler-colonial regime.”
The rights group noted that many European states either abstained or voted against the measure despite it coming “at a critical time when a new far-right Israeli government has been installed.”



That government, Al Mezan noted, has “vowed to legalize dozens of illegal settlements and annex the West Bank as a top priority.”

Indeed, Israel is seeing through with those pledges by destroying Palestinian structures in Jerusalem and the South Hebron Hills and issuing forcible transfer notices affecting 1,000 people in the Masafer Yatta area of the southern West Bank this week.



European double standards


The failure of many European states to support the resolution seeking an advisory opinion on Israel’s prolonged occupation throws the double standards by which international law is applied into sharp contrast.

While imposing unprecedented sanctions on Russia over its invasion and occupation of Ukraine, European states have paid only lip service to opposing Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

European Union officials even welcomed the new Israeli government led by extremists who have pledged to formally annex West Bank land and complete the ethnic cleansing of Palestine that began in 1948. Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, has stated that he plans to work with the new government on “further improving” relations with Israel.

While Borrell continues to talk about promoting a two-state solution, Zvika Fogel, a member of the new Israeli parliament, said that “the occupation is permanent.”





Fogel belongs to the Jewish Power party headed by Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s new national security minister who now oversees Israel’s police and paramilitary Border Police that operate in the West Bank.

Fogel is former chief of staff of the Israeli military’s “southern command,” which includes the Gaza Strip.

In 2018, soon after the launch of Great March of Return protests along Gaza’s boundary with Israel, Fogel championed the use of lethal force against Palestinians who approach the boundary fence, including children.

He said that shooting and killing children was a reasonable “price that we have to pay to preserve the safety and quality of life of the residents of the state of Israel.”

More than 215 Palestinian civilians, including more than 40 children, were killed during those demonstrations, and thousands more wounded by live fire during those protests between March 2018 and December 2019.

A UN commission of inquiry found that Israel’s use of lethal force against protesters warrants criminal investigation and prosecution and may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The UN investigators called for sanctions on those responsible and for the arrest of Israeli personnel “alleged to have committed, or who ordered to have committed” international crimes in relation to the Great March of Return protests.

Those recommendations went ignored by the same states who have thrown their support and money behind war crimes trials and other punitive measures after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

UK
Why Labour think they’ve rumbled Rishi

5 January 2023, 
Rishi Sunak gives his first major speech of the year at Plexal, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, 4 January 2023 (Getty Images)

Labour’s leaders do not rate Rishi Sunak. I don’t mean by this that they think his policies range from the wrongheaded to the disastrous – we can take these opposition criticisms as a given. I mean that as professional politicians they look at the Prime Minister and see a rank amateur.

‘He’s rubbish,’ a member of the shadow cabinet told me. ‘I mean’ he continued bursting into derisory laughter during his speech yesterday, ‘what the hell was that maths thing about?’

In case you missed it, from the morning papers through to lunchtime on Wednesday, the PM’s New Year message was that he wanted children to study maths until they were 18. Leave aside that we do not have enough maths teachers as it is, and that, even if we did, they would soon be on strike, and focus on the frivolity of making a vague announcement about an unfunded programme for teaching teenagers in the middle of a national emergency.

‘There are people dying on trolleys,’ the Labour politician continued. ‘Doctors in tears on the television, and he wants to lead the news agenda with maths.’

Labour thinks that even now Sunak is behaving like a chancellor rather than a Prime Minister

To be fair, by yesterday afternoon, Sunak was holding a press conference to address the health and economic crises. But Labour politicians compared his bloodless statement with how Tony Blair handled the winter health emergency of 2000. Blair went on a Sunday morning television show and made a sweeping commitment to inject at least £12 billion of extra money into the NHS, and raise health spending to European levels. Gordon Brown was furious. (He invariably was.) ‘You’ve stolen my f***ing budget,’ he shouted at Blair. But Labour honoured Blair’s promise nevertheless.

Matching French or German health spending per head in 2022 would require an additional £40bn or £73bn respectively. But no commitment to bring the UK up to European health levels came from Sunak. When he finally tore himself away from the urgent question of maths lessons, he promised to cut waiting lists

How was he going to do that? He did not say.

He then promised that inflation would fall in 2023. Well, it will surely fall as last year’s massive rises drop out of the retail price index. The issue is not whether inflation will fall but whether living standards will rise, and on that Sunak offered nothing beyond the airy platitude that he wanted to create ‘better-paid jobs and opportunity across the country’.

A nice thought, that raised the question how he intended to create high-paying jobs. Answer came there none.

As the years of Tory rule end, there is something almost spectral about Sunak. Jeremy Hunt and the rest of the Tory leadership. Like Jeremy Corbyn at a wreath-laying ceremony near the graves of Black September terrorists, they are ‘present but not involved’. As the economic crisis deepens, they appear to be vanishing before our eyes, like figures fading from a picture left in the sun: the ghostly leaders of a zombie government.

The corruption of the Johnson administration and the ideological frenzy of the Truss interregnum have been replaced by a weird stillness. There’s no passion, vision, or coherent programme – just disjointed statements that might have been written by a ChatGPT bot and uttered by a hologram.

In private, Labour’s Treasury team who took on Sunak when he was chancellor, say that Rachel Reeves noticed how uncomfortable he was with spontaneity.

‘He can only manage manicured moments,’ one said. ‘He’s not reactive. He can’t think on his feet. He hated coming to the House and doing Treasury questions because he was in an environment he could not control.’

Labour thinks that even now Sunak is behaving like a chancellor rather than a Prime Minister: micromanaging rather than providing leadership.

If you doubt this analysis, look at the scene over Christmas when Sunak met a homeless man who said he wanted to work in the City. Any competent PM would have pointed to the schemes his government had to help people out of homelessness, and the pathways to training and jobs it offered. They’d have promised that their aides would point him towards agencies that could help.

All the lame Sunak could say was ‘I used to work in finance, actually’. Before adding that there weren’t just jobs in London but all over the country.

Natural politicians are sharper than that. They are present and involved.

Everyone I spoke to in Labour thinks Sunak is beatable. They do not believe he will stand up well to the hubbub and scrutiny of a general election campaign, when the ability to think on your feet is paramount and not every moment can be manicured.

‘He will wilt under the spotlight, like Theresa May,’ one shadow minister predicted.

Well, loyal Conservatives among the Spectator readership might cry, Keir Starmer is hardly charisma central. It’s a fair point, and I concede it. But Starmer is visibly growing in confidence. Proof, if you need it, that it’s amazing what a 20-point poll lead can do for a chap’s self-esteem.

Until he became PM, Labour worried about the damage Sunak could inflict. During the Tory leadership election before last (at least I think it was the one before last, but perhaps I am losing count) they feared Sunak more than Liz Truss. They worried about losing the Indian diaspora vote. They thought that the popularity Sunak had earned during the Covid crisis would carry over.

They are still nervous about the next election. And rightly so. Losing general elections is what Labour does. This nervousness explains Starmer’s caution, when to my mind, the atrocious state of the UK, demands radical measures.

Perhaps we will see a little more flesh on a programme for government in the next few weeks as Labour emphasises how it will use state purchasing power to ‘buy, make and sell in the UK.’

We will certainly see today, as Starmer delivers his first speech of 2023, an attack on Sunak’s reputation for fiscal prudence, backed with an attempt to persuade the media to focus on the extraordinary level of fraud the Conservatives have allowed to flourish.

Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow work and pensions secretary, is campaigning on the billions of pounds in false benefits claims and over-payments that have vanished in the past two years, often into the pockets of organised crime.

Rachel Reeves is emphasising how nothing Sunak does works. In no particular order, he has given us the jobs retention bonus, which was heavily criticised on value for money grounds and cancelled. Sunak promised a replacement but it never appeared. The kickstart scheme was another Rishi innovation. Yet Sunak himself effectively admitted in June 2021 that the scheme was off target and paltry when set against the needs of the neglected young. He said that 31,000 Kickstarters had started their jobs. But the target for placements was 250,000 by December 2022, Needless to say, he failed to meet it. The PM’s green homes grant, unveiled when he was chancellor, was another disaster: the £2 billion insulation scheme was cancelled before the money was spent, breaking the government’s promise to deliver 100,000 new jobs across England

I could go on, but as Labour, and indeed Johnson, Truss and Sunak’s opponents in the Tory party, have realised, fraud and profligacy are his weak points. Labour’s focus groups loved him when he was handing out furlough payments but were horrified by the covid swindles.

Although wary of betraying the slightest sign of overconfidence, the opposition is convinced it can beat him. It is going for Sunak hard because it thinks that, when the history of this strange period is written, he will be seen as an empty space: the prime minister who never was.



WRITTEN BY
Nick Cohen
Nick Cohen is the author of What's Left and You Can't Read This Book.
A Comet Zooming Toward Us Could Soon Be Visible With the Naked Eye

Its name is a mouthful, but Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) could be the brightest of 2023.



Eric Mack
Jan. 5, 2023


Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) as observed from Mount Fuji, Japan.
SpaceWeatherGallery.com/Akihiro Yamazaki


The new year is less than a week old, but what's expected to be the brightest comet of 2023 could be within our sights soon. 

Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) was first discovered in March by the Zwicky Transient Facility, aka ZTF, in Southern California, and it's been speeding in the direction of the sun ever since. As the space snowball comes closer, it brightens and is now just weeks from making its closest passes by both the sun and Earth. This makes January and February prime time to try to see it for yourself, perhaps even without the need of a telescope, if it continues to shine ever brighter. 

The comet has traveled hundreds of billions of miles from the Oort cloud in the outer reaches of the solar system, drawn by the gravity of the sun on its very long and elliptical orbit. It will finally reach perihelion, or its close pass by the sun, on Jan. 12. If it survives the intense heat and pressure from the encounter without breaking up, it will then begin to head back out to deep space, passing by Earth along the way in early February.

The comet is expected to be closest to Earth on Feb. 1, according to NASA, at which point it could become a magnitude six object, just bright enough to see with the unaided eye, though binoculars and very dark skies always help. 

The behavior of comets is rather unpredictable, as they can brighten, dim or completely disintegrate with little warning. But if trends and the integrity of the cosmic cruiser hold, the moonless sky on Jan. 21 could mark a good night to start venturing out to try to spot it, according to the British Astronomical Association

You can practice trying to spot the comet now with a backyard telescope as it continues to brighten (hopefully) until Feb. 1. By far the easiest way to locate it is with a site like In The Sky or the excellent mobile app Stellarium

If you happen to get any great photos, please share them with me on Twitter, @EricCMack

Stellantis CEO Warns of More Auto Plant Closures

The logo of Stellantis is seen on a company's building in Velizy-Villacoublay near Paris, France, February 23, 2022. 
REUTERS/Gonzalo FuentesREUTERS

By Joseph White and Aishwarya Nair
Reuters
Jan. 5, 2023, 

(Reuters) -Chrysler parent Stellantis NV Chief Executive Officer Carlos Tavares said on Thursday that more auto plant closures will happen if high prices for electric vehicles (EV) cause vehicle markets to shrink from pre-pandemic levels.

Automakers will risk losing pricing power as chip supplies recover, Tavares said at the CES technology trade show in Las Vegas.

The comments come as lack of affordability looms over the U.S. EV market at a time when top EV makers are raising prices amid high inflation.

More U.S. consumers want to buy an electric vehicle but are concerned about rising prices, a survey by consulting firm Deloitte showed on Wednesday.

"Nearly 7 in 10 prospective EV buyers in the United States expect to pay less than $50,000 for their next vehicle," according to the survey conducted between September and October 2022.

Stellantis said last month it would indefinitely idle an assembly plant in Belvidere, Illionois, citing high EV costs. Tavares told reporters said similar actions "will happen everywhere as long as we see high inflation of variable costs."

The auto industry must absorb 40% higher costs for EVs, he added.

The company had flagged that increasing costs related to the electrification of the automotive market as the most impactful challenge affecting the auto industry.

"If the market shrinks we don't need so many plants," Tavares said. "Some unpopular decisions will have to be made."

(Reporting by Aishwarya Nair in Bengaluru and Joe White in Detroit; Editing by Rashmi Aich) Deloitte showed on Wednesday.