IT is vital for Britain that the Tories pick the right leader.
Many may roll their eyes reading that. It is just two months since voters showed their total contempt for the party. It is out of power for five years at least.
But whoever takes the Tory crown is still overwhelmingly likely to become PM if the wheels come off Labour.
The Tories cannot indulge a “continuity” candidate . . . someone more inclined to talk tough than act.
Someone obsessed by focus groups, how policies might play on Twitter and what a great operator Tony Blair was.
Margaret Thatcher had unshakable principles, an iron-clad belief system which informed every decision.
Voters liked it — and her tax-cutting transformation of Britain after the union-dominated decay of the 1970s.
She won three elections on the trot and the Tories won a fourth after her.
Their new leader needs the same steel.
Take one crucial issue, membership of the meddling ECHR. The case for leaving has been overwhelming for years.
But it would be a huge decision fraught with legal and practical problems.
Any Tory promising it must know what those are and how to overcome them.
What is fatal in voters’ eyes, as recent Tory Governments discovered, is glib sabre-rattling followed by capitulation when an issue proves too hard.
So we look forward to the battle of ideas. But the candidates must all grasp what the job is.
They will not be merely Rishi Sunak’s replacement, refighting old battles.
They have to mastermind a total reinvention of the party to recapture the support of millions in 2029.
OUR ally Israel is at war with a terrorist mob currently slaughtering Jewish hostages while hiding behind Gaza’s citizens.
Despite the bloodshed there, which Hamas relishes as a propaganda tool, Britain’s commitment to our international friends should be unwavering.
Instead, as Israel mourns yet more of its dead, our Government suspends UK sales of some arms to Tel Aviv.
Many will fear that Foreign Secretary David Lammy has put his politics before our loyalty to a major partner rightly defending itself against savages sworn to repeat the October 7 atrocities.
The Left is cock-a-hoop. Israel, betrayed and enraged, is unlikely to forget.
WE hold no sympathy for the boy of 12 dubbed Britain’s worst rioter.
But his dad’s serving a long stretch. And his mum flew to Ibiza rather than take him to court to be sentenced.
We hope the judge throws the book at her when she returns.
Little wonder that child turned out as he has.
