There would appear to be an unofficial boycott of the Cop 27 climate conference, which starts in Egypt next weekend, by top level Brits. Like Trump used to ignore all such things when he was the POTUS, which fortunately he no longer is and hopefully, he never will be again.

Rishi is simply too busy to attend. There’s the economy, the recession, inflation rates, austerity, pension locks and all manner of fiscal shit for which an official statement is due at precisely that time.

Like, was Rishi going to spend the day before the announcement working out what to do? On the back of a Tesco receipt? Or does he in fact have teams of economists, accountants, forecasters and mathematical type boffins working on it right now, having started the day he was elected? Because he wasn’t too busy yesterday to go visiting old ladies in a hospital. Which is a very important thing for a Prime Minister to do. The ‘PR’ side of things. Visit factories, wear a hard hat, hold a baby, eat ice creams, visit old ladies.

He’d have been better off cancelling the old ladies, who’d have been none the wiser, nor any worse off, and instead save a day to attend the Conference. Because old ladies are not the beneficiaries of climate action. They’ll be gone long before any measures do or don’t work. But young people are far more concerned and engaged in the climate debate. Because its their world too and they’re still going to be here when the shit hits the fan, or if it miraculously doesn’t. And it only doesn’t if action is taken. So for Rishi to be ‘too busy’ downplays the importance. Which then disengages him from the young, who are always the last to come and vote anyway.

And then, even worse, Rishi has decided that King Charles can’t attend the conference either. Not sure how that works, exactly, how ‘rank’ gets pulled in that direction but apparently its the case. Our eco-warrior Prince would dearly love to go. No man likes a platform more than King C, especially when its about ecology. Maybe Rishi thought the King would get boring. But as all climate stuff is boring, no-one would notice. Doesn’t mean its not incredibly important.

I just played tennis in the almost-early-November sunshine of about 20 degrees. Which I just fucking love. But even if polar bears could play tennis, they wouldn’t be quite so overjoyed.

Mistake, Rishi. Not catastrophic, but a big mistake.

Happy Green Saturday

A xxxx