It’s never too late to rescue the Tories, Rishi – but the clock is ticking after local election mini-massacre

JUST a few weeks ago, Tory tails were up, Rishi was biffing Sir Keir about the ears and there was wild talk, admittedly put about by me, of a snap autumn election.

All that optimism evaporated like morning mist on Friday. The local elections proved Tory hopes of a ­miracle fourth term are, as The Apprentice’s Lord Sugar might say, ten per cent of naff all.

Voters dumped more than 1,000 Conservative councillors . . . a bleak result greeted by Starmer with the most depressing words in the English language: “Make no mistake — we are on course for an overall majority at the next election.”

It’s not quite true. At least, not yet.

There is a mountain to climb and Labour may have already peaked.

With a more impressive leader, Labour could and should be on track for ­outright victory in 2024.

With Starmer, Labour will need to stitch up a coalition with the resurgent but wholly unreliable Lib Dems — plus a handful of oddball Greens.

In any event, we look like having to endure Prime ­Minister Sir Keir and a re-run of the disastrous 1970s Lib-Lab pact.

Heaven help us all.

It seems only weeks ago that everything was going so well for the Tories. And it was.

There was a definite Rishi Sunak “bounce” as the PM exposed SNP hypocrisy over gender rights — marking Nicola ­Sturgeon’s last gasp.

The former Chancellor put a cork in the endless squabble with Brussels over Northern Ireland.

And he vowed to stop small boats crossing the Channel, by sending migrants to Rwanda.

There were high hopes the economy was on the mend, with tax cuts in view.

After last year’s carnage, the Tories were up for the fight and polls indicated Labour’s double-digit lead had begun to slip. Thursday nailed that illusion.

Voters aren’t interested in Northern Ireland, or trans issues — vexing though both may be.

But the gaping hole in household budgets makes us all sit up and pay attention.

Rishi promised to halve inflation. But it remains stubbornly above ten per cent, among the highest in Europe. Food prices have risen almost twice as fast, by an average 19.2 per cent.

Basics such as sugar, milk, cheese and other dairy ­products have gone up by a third. This is a huge bite out of disposable income, especially for the poorest struggling to feed their families.

Yes, most of it is beyond Rishi’s control — Covid, Ukraine and, not least, the abject failure of the Bank of England to see this crisis coming. Voters are too busy searching their empty wallets to worry about Treasury-level economics.

But if they can’t see a ­doctor or a dentist, catch a train, call police to a ­burglary, renew a passport or buy their kids dinner, they will kick the cat — in this case, a tired Tory ­government.

Housing crisis

If they aren’t worrying about putting food on the table, they wonder what the Tories have been doing for the past 13 years.

And when they see TV news about another boatload of migrants on the Kent coast, they ask what happened to “take back control”.

Summer hasn’t even started and we are well on track to beat last year’s 45,000 ­illegal arrivals record.

Voters have also clocked that half a million more are coming here legally. And that’s literally the half of it.

The real total is a stagger- ing 1.1million each year, reduced officially to a net 504,000 after deducting the half a million who have actually left these shores.

No wonder there is a ­housing crisis.

Labour promises to build thousands of new homes.

That won’t be enough, especially as Labour has no intention of stopping immigration either. Starmer has not snatched the initiative by having bright ideas of his own. The Tories have lost it by failing to deliver them.

Rishi Sunak is now under pressure to deliver real ­Conservative policies — lower taxes, stronger policing, incentives for five million ­working-age people to quit welfare and find jobs.

It’s never too late, they say.

But after Thursday’s mini-massacre, the clock is ­ticking.