‘Can Rishi Sunak’s team pull off the Great Escape’

Staring down the group, he gives the following order: “That’s exactly what we’re going to do… in fact, we’re going to put the goons to sleep. Meanwhile, we dig.” Swap Stalag Luft III with Number 10 Downing Street, Wing Commander Bartlett with Rishi Sunak and the escape committee with his Cabinet.Then you get the inside track on the new Government’s plan to dampen down the daily diet of headlines of infighting, feuds and failure.It’s all in the hope of ensuring a period of calm… to allow them to try to “dig” their way out of the financial crisis.They also hope to achieve the almost unachievable, healing rifts among Tories that had been open sores before, during and after the Brexit campaign.Freshly re-installed Cabinet Minister Michael Gove told me as much at the London Press Club awards last week: “With respect to the news business, our united goal is to be dull. Sorry. No more lurid stories. Our goal is to just read the headlines each day, not feature in them.”Then perhaps we can get on and actually work on delivering on the manifesto that got us here in the first place.”We in the media are the goons and they’ll do their darnedest to ensure we’re lulled into a dozy boredom by their supposed good behaviour – and even start “patrolling” elsewhere.A study of the team Rishi put together last week certainly underscores that goal.So many olive branches were offered the tree must have been stripped bare.Bringing back “big beasts” such as Dominic Raab and Michael Gove makes perfect sense as both are excellent communicators and the latter would appear to have been recruited to help Mr Sunak prepare for PMQs given his arrival last Wednesday morning shortly after 7am. ‘Rishi’s team must dig themselves out of a hole lot of trouble’ (Image: Getty)Another new arrival, Gillian Keegan, is a hugely popular figure in the party and needs to bring stability to Education where she will be the fifth person in that post this year alone. And forget the confected fury concerning Suella Braverman’s return as Home Secretary. This is the most chaotic and dysfunctional of all government departments and needs someone who doesn’t wilt under fire.This “darling of the Tory right” certainly will not, and it is also a clear sign Mr Sunak intends to press on with trying to solve the Channel immigration crisis.Such determination could be vital in limiting the damage undoubtedly coming the Tories’ way among the famous “Red Wall” seats at the next general election.Tories will rightly be buoyed by Mr Sunak’s debut PMQs last Wednesday – and Labour are rattled by his arrival.While headlines from New York to New Delhi and Winnipeg to Wellington celebrated the fact Britain had its first PM of South Indian descent, one Labour MP went on the offensive – in both senses.Labour MP for Nottingham East, Nadia Whittome, tweeted: “Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister isn’t a win for Asian representation. He’s a multi-millionaire… Black, white or Asian – if you work for a living, he is not on your side.”That tweet has been taken down – but the message remains clear. Labour will use any and everything to attack him.Without a doubt, Mr Sunak will know it is in both his and the nation’s interests to pull of this “Great Escape”.After all, the film’s fans will remember Wing Commander Bartlett’s fate.As our friends in the US might say, “Enough already!” In the last few days alone, protesters from Just Stop Oil have tried to bring rush-hour traffic to a standstill, sprayed a luxury car showroom’s windows with orange paint and even rammed chocolate cake into the face of the waxwork model of King Charles at MadameTussaud’s.These eco zealots clearly believe anything goes in their bid to get their message across.This has crossed from a cause to a cult. Emergency vehicles have been delayed in attending urgent calls by their actions. Don’t buy their pathetic rhetoric that they always move aside to let the vehicles pass.Firstly, they don’t and secondly, the emergency crews are often forced on lengthy diversions when their navigation systems pick up the jams.Nothing can validate pouring milk on store floors, or hurling mashed potato and soup at priceless works of art. As for vandalising a statue of King Charles, he was on to the perils facing the planet before most of these vandals were even born.The solution is simple: jail for anyone blocking roads that disrupt emergency vehicles and eyewatering fines for anyone chucking around paint, potato and soup.That would just stop Just Stop Oil. ‘Countless lives were wrongly and needlessly thrown into utter chaos’ (Image: Getty)Courtesy of his frenzied urging, former Labour deputy leader Tom Watson helped ensure that war hero Lord Bramall – the man who held the most senior post in the British Army – plus former Home Secretary Leon Brittan and many other prominent politicians were denounced as being part of a Westminster paedophile ring.Countless lives were wrongly and needlessly thrown into utter chaos. Yet there was never a shred of evidence to support these outlandish claims.But Watson took the unsubstantiated word of a fantasist currently behind bars. A misjudgement of colossal proportions.So can anyone explain why Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer consistently supports this oaf’s elevation to the House of Lords?The ‘Smart Motorway’ scandalIt is a scandal of almost criminal proportions that so much of the vile so-called “Smart Motorway” system failed last week.Millions of lives were put at risk after cameras on 280 miles of motorways failed due to a technical glitch and were out of use for seven hours – although campaigners say the outage lasted much longer.The rollout of new “Smart Motorways” has been paused, but is it going to take a horrific pile-up before the sensible decision is taken to scrap these death traps?What are the chances most of the liberal elite who proclaim there is no real problem with illegal migrant crossings do not live in Kent?Pretty high I’d suggest, seeing as the good folk of Dover were warned last week by their district council to keep their doors locked to stop migrants slipping in to demand money, phones and even cars!When this starts happening in Westminster, we might get some action.Meghan has hit the markThis might well be a collectors’ item, but I applaud to the rafters the fact that Meghan has hit the mark. In the latest episode of her Spotify podcast, the Duchess of Sussex addressed a syndrome dubbed the “angry black woman”.In her punchy discussion Meghan, 41, said: “You’re allowed to set a boundary. You’re allowed to be clear. It does not make you demanding. It does not make you difficult, it makes you clear.”As a veteran of newsrooms and one editor who wouldn’t have been out of place in the movie Platoon, she is right. Expecting you to always perform to your best ability is not demanding: it’s called going for the best possible results.*With the eyes of the cricketing world firmly set on (a wet) Australia, here’s a fruity red that could dispatch any ball to the boundary. The Penfolds Koonunga Hill Shiraz is £9 at Tesco.