‘Take me to your leader!’ – Viva!life 82

I’ll do my best, says Tony Wardle, but I’m not sure I can find one

Featured in Viva!Life 82/Winter 2022

The contest to elect a new prime minister was an irrelevance to most of us but we do now have a new leader whose role it is to… well, lead, presumably. Ending smart motorways, as Ms Truss promised, isn’t high on my agenda but climate change, the environment and pandemics are. Motorway management is a bit esoteric by comparison.

I’m going to try and keep track of all that’s happening in real time but her direction of travel is already crystal clear – it’s a case of ‘The Pandemic is dead, long live the Brexit.’ A bonfire of regulations that was promised at the time of Brexit was put on hold while Covid-19 was tackled. But now the Draculas of deregulation have joyfully emerged from the dark to celebrate, Sir John Redwood and Professor Patrick Minford amongst them.

But just a minute – everything has suddenly changed, including the chancellor, and back into the free-market crypt they’ve crawled.

You don’t need me to tell you that the world is in a state. The UK has made a binding agreement to limit global warming to no more than 1.5ºC above pre- industrial levels and reach zero carbon by 2050 – and just about every scientist who ever donned a mortar board says we’re not even close to meeting that commitment. In fact, the UNFCCC reports, even as I’m writing, that we’re on track to hit 2.5ºC. And on the same day, a report from the analytical Systems Change Lab says that maximum meat consumption should be no more than two burgers a week at most.

Truth is, I’m tired of constantly quoting the world’s big scientific institutions, who all agree that we are in the mire up to our necks and have but a few years to sort ourselves out before Armageddon beckons. And they all agree that slashing livestock for meat and dairy is essential to solving the problem of global warming, environmental collapse, wildlife loss as well as improving human health. And the government knows it too but as my mum used to say: “There’s none so deaf as those who don’t want to hear.”

There is now a chorus of voices who are singing in almost perfect harmony that livestock numbers have to be slashed. Even old-established institutions, such as the RSPB and the National Trust, have begun to reach for the song sheet even if they haven’t yet fully found their voices.

The odd man out is the RSPCA, which is still promoting farmed fish, meat and dairy, blindly ignoring the millions of wild fish who are slaughtered – and the wildlife that is devastated – just to provide food for captive animals under its (laughable) Assurance Scheme (see page 12).

And again, bang on cue, WWF have just reported that almost 70 per cent of the world’s wildlife has disappeared since 1970. This is a staggering figure and identifies the kind of collapse that precedes an irreversible global disaster. And how did our new leader respond? She didn’t, not a dickie bird – and nor did the prince over the water, Keir Starmer. How can anyone pretend to offer leadership to a nation when they don’t even understand the basics of life on Earth?

It is no coincidence that just about every environment secretary for the past 12 years has been a climate change denier and an encourager of meat consumption, and that includes the current occupant, Ranil Jayawardena. According to the website They Work For You (who keep track of how MPs vote), Jayawardena has “consistently voted against measures to prevent climate change,” as well as resisting any support for renewable energy projects.

During the leadership circus, Rishi-in-waiting joined the ‘we love meat’ crowd by saying: “I’m not going to tell people to eat less meat!” This happy-clappy, meat- supporting cabal isn’t just about politicians genuflecting to their supporter base (although it certainly is that), it is a betrayal of me, you, our children and everyone’s future.

When my 20-year-old sons ask what’s the point of slaving away to get degrees when they may not even have a future, what do I tell them? The truthful answer would be that they have been utterly sold out by self- centered, privileged, career politicians who pretend to lead us but who really should be charged with treason and locked up in the Tower of London.

They remind me of Adolf Hitler, hiding deep in his bunker, refusing to surrender, refusing to face reality, while Berlin collapsed around him. It is the entire planet that is now beginning to collapse around us and yet still they refuse to cry ‘surrender’ and abandon policies that are killing us.

Instead, Ms Truss has decided that there’ll be no ban on fur, foie gras or the trophies from hunting. There will be a rescinding of regulations that protect the environment, employment, nature, animals and wildlife, fracking will be resumed and new oil wells will be drilled in the North Sea. That’ll do the trick!

The cheapest and quickest route to clean energy is to build onshore wind farms! Oh, but they’re banned (probably), as are solar farms. And as for insulating people’s homes – that doesn’t seem to be a goer either. On the other hand, she could just get Sir Simon Rattle to conduct a new requiem.

It’s not surprising that young people (mostly) are despairing and are taking direct action on the streets under a variety of banners. Their cause is absolutely just, even if you disagree with their methods. The gutter press and its billionaire foreign owners are rubbing their hands together gleefully because they have new enemies to vilify.

“Selfish eco-zealots”. “Poundshop anarchists”. “Poshos with no real world problems”. Ms Truss’s new home secretary, Suella Braverman, has joined their chorus with an unhinged outburst that tops them all, “Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati”, part of the “anti-growth coalition,” which seems to include everyone but meat-eating, Daily Telegraph readers.

The planet is disappearing down the plug hole and this is a politician who’s supposedly going to save it! Her answer is to drive through legislation that will outlaw virtually all demonstrations and strikes.

Just a minute … Oh dear, she’s suddenly out, having breached the ministerial code. Whoops, and its all changed again! Rishi’s no longer waiting – he’s got the top job. Another one who has mostly voted against measures to prevent climate change, has given oil and gas companies big tax breaks and is going to pump the North Sea dry of gas.

He has banned fracking, however, but only because it’s uneconomic, I suspect. New Environment Secretary Jayawardena has been handed his P45 as has climate change denier, Jacob Rees-Mogg. Rishi deserves a big kiss if only for that!

Oh, but hang on, tofu-hating Cruella de Bravermann has been forgiven and is back in post.

So who de we now have at the environment? Théresè Coffey! As ex-Health Secretary, she’ll try to reduce meat consumption, won’t she? “What next … No spag bol?” I think that’s a ‘no’.

But sadly, there’s more. The deadly strain of H5N1 bird flu is not contagious and the only people who have caught it have been in direct contact with poultry but the death rate is a terrifying 53 per cent. Two years ago, there was one outbreak of H5N1 in UK poultry; this year it is well over 200 and growing.

With viruses constantly mutating in all factory farms, it doesn’t take much of a change to make H5N1 contagious, human to human, and… Despite having been warned with Covid- 19, our leaders have done absolutely nothing to try and prevent it.

The only postscript I can think of is that we, as an electorate, voted this lot into power – the last time opting for a jolly, big blond buffoon with an outsized ego and a history of utter incompetence. Maybe we get what we deserve.