IT’S hard to know whether to laugh or cry. The happy demise of Boris has been followed by lots of Conservative MPs talking about the crises that the next PM faces: the war in Ukraine, the economic crisis, the new rise of Covid infections, and the need to level up. I did not hear one of them saying that there is a climate crisis hitting us as we speak.

Recently Sir Dieter Helm, Professor of Economic Policy at Oxford University, gave a talk in Winchester. He was adamant that we had to stop causing Climate Change NOW, and that the present crisis of the UK’s insecure energy supply was a wake-up call to put in place a long-term plan to deal with the climate crisis, outlandish energy bills, and in particular, the intermittency of wind and solar power. Otherwise our teenagers and middle-agers, to use John Kerry’s words, will just “cook”.

I am now convinced that Boris’s shenanigans grew out of the so-called “Natural Party of Government’s” desperate thirst for power in 2010, which encouraged them, e.g. Messrs Cameron and Brine, to present themselves in certain ways that had no bearing on what they intended to do. Since honesty post-Boris is going to be at a premium, it must include an honesty and self-knowledge about their own shortcomings both of character and background. The UK needs a wise leader.

Personally, I now have a forlorn hope that the next Prime Minister will see the need to lead a National Government to cope with a multi-headed crisis that is at least as bad and actually far more complex than what the world faced in 1940. That government achieved a lot - and not just militarily. This putative government needs to include members from all main political parties and the TUC, industrialists, academics, scientists, and top-rated civil servants and members of the armed forces, and be limited to five years in power. At the moment the power game of party politics is playing havoc with focussed thinking.

Jock Macdonald,

Stockbridge Road,

Fulflood,

Winchester.

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