Rishi Sunak’s Tories have taken an almighty ballot box battering . . . but clearly not ALL is lost.

A last chance

RISHI Sunak’s Tories have taken an almighty ballot box battering . . . but clearly not ALL is lost.

The victory for their Mayor in the Tees Valley, another likely in the West Midlands — and the council in Harlow, Essex, staying blue despite everything Labour threw at it — are crumbs of comfort for No10.

So is the apparently strong showing in parts of London.

The story the BBC and other Labour activists wanted, of the Tories tearing themselves to shreds, is dead.

Despite the council losses and by-election defeat, there are enough glimmers of hope to quell hysteria about leadership challenges and early elections.

Make no mistake, Labour are still overwhelming favourites to win power this year and — thanks mainly to the Reform Party splitting the right-wing vote — with a comfortable majority too.

But Mr Sunak will not now be hurried into that election.

He can give himself six months to try to revive his fortunes.

Here’s a tip from us: The Tories may not be flavour of the month.

But Keir Starmer inspires no enthusiasm among much of the electorate.

Meanwhile genuinely conservative policies remain surprisingly popular.

Let’s see some more of them, PM.

Gloves off

UKRAINE has every right to destroy whatever it can reach deep inside Russia using UK-made long-range weapons.

The US edict to avoid oil refineries, a self-serving attempt to keep prices down as Joe Biden faces re-election, was disgraceful.

We applaud Foreign Secretary David Cameron for bluntly disagreeing.

Moscow is destroying Ukraine’s key infrastructure.

Payback is long overdue.

Biden cannot expect Kyiv to fight with one arm tied behind its back.

Hamas horror

ISRAELI teen Noga Weiss was held hostage in Gaza by a Hamas cut-throat who told her: “You will stay here and have my children.”

This warped psychopath had earlier helped butcher terrified Noga’s father.

Mercifully, she is now free.

But each harrowing account from Jewish women abused by the terrorists makes it more depressing that trendy students in the West style themselves as Team Hamas.

These are juvenile fake “liberals” who romanticise racist, misogynist, rapist ­murderers as noble freedom fighters.

Even the sick leftists who used to back the IRA weren’t quite this deranged.

Cheery lot

WATCHING sport makes us happier, even permanently, a scientist has found.

He’s Prof Shintaro Sato from Japan.

And, if we may add a note of caution, not an England football fan.