Last week marked 12 months since Rishi Sunak was appointed Prime Minister by Conservative MPs after Liz Truss beat him at the first go.
Over that time he has faced nine by-elections (with a possible 10th on the way) and won one.
He has performed so many U-turns it feels like we're all aboard The Magic Roundabout and managed to lose more than 1,000 seats at last May’s local elections.
On those U-turns, it is constantly hard working, normal people who are clobbered by the Prime Minister’s decisions.
In their 2019 manifesto, the Tories said there would be no increases to the main taxes. As we come towards the end of this parliamentary term, Rishi Sunak’s government is overseeing the biggest tax rises since World War Two.
In September, the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the UK’s leading economic think-tank, said tax revenue will amount to 37 percent by the next general election, the largest increase since records began in the 1950s.
Yes that's right, you are now paying the highest tax burden in peacetime! So much for fiscal responsibility.
In September Sunak ignited the culture wars once more, by announcing the government was rolling back on key climate policies. The changes included a delay to the phasing out of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030, setting a new target of 2035.
This week, the U-turn looked even more short sighted than it was back then, as the energy watchdog the International Energy Agency warned that, in rowing back on green policies, countries risk fuelling the climate crisis and damaging their economies.
Just days after the net zero reversal, the PM triggered another dizzying U-turn when he announced at the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester that the northern leg of HS2 was to be scrapped.
This, despite proclaiming that he was the “most Northern Chancellor in 70 years” during the Tory leadership debate.
In ditching the HS2 leg, which had been passed through parliament with overwhelming cross-party support under previous Tory prime ministers, Sunak was accused of the “biggest and most damaging U-turn in the history of UK infrastructure".
To be fair to Sunak, he said the money saved would go on other aspects of transport in the North such as extending the Metrolink to Manchester Airport (completed in 2014) so at least we have that to look forward to.
It is fantasy ideas from a nightmare Prime Minister, one that is so out of touch with the modern reality of daily life for people in Bury, the last time he was here he got us mixed up with Burnley which quite frankly epitomises how little he cares about us.
He was urged to spend more time in the North following that gaffe, but I don’t want him up here and I don’t want him in Number 10 either.
If the next 12 months are anything like his first, he should call a general election and allow people to stop this misery now.
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