BEST FOR BRITAIN'S 



WEEKEND WIRE



Dear John,



This week, the UK hosted foreign leaders, struck new ‘trade deals’, and even had a few former PMs stick their noses in the political fray. Our offices are close enough to the Houses of Parliament to tell you that unplugged nostrils anywhere in sniffing distance of this Government are not advisable.



Tragedy in Turkey and Syria <[link removed]>



Early on Monday morning, southeastern Turkey and northwestern Syria were rocked <[link removed]> by a magnitude 7.8 earthquake. The massive tremor, whose epicentre was on the Turkish side of the border, was followed by numerous aftershocks felt as far away as Romania and Iraq.



With winter weather and rain hampering rescue efforts, the quake has caused widespread devastation, with over 22,300 <[link removed]> people reported killed in the disaster as of Friday afternoon. 



The Turkish government labelled the earthquake the country’s greatest disaster in over 80 years. The British Red Cross has set up an emergency fund <[link removed]> for donations, while Human Appeal has set up a fund <[link removed]>to help aid displaced persons living in the area affected by the quake.



Best for Britain expresses <[link removed]> our deepest sympathies for the lives lost or uprooted by the disaster.



Truss: I was right all along; everyone had it in for me from the start; it wasn’t my fault



Truss was back in last Sunday’s Telegraph when, after all the humiliations, economic meltdowns, and lost Mexican standoffs with produce that 49 days can throw at a person, she finally broke her silence <[link removed]> in a nearly 4000-word op-ed. The TLDR (and, for the sake of your sanity, please DR)? I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for those meddling markets.









In a very, very, very long-winded treatise, Truss blamed “economic orthodoxy” for the pandemonium she unleashed, claimed nobody respected her “mandate” (from 0.17% of the electorate), and warned Tories to ignore her expertise at their own peril.



It’s one Deputy Party Chairman, Rishi. What could it cost? 30p?



Eagle-eyed readers may note that we’ve used this gag before, but in our defence, the jokes sometimes write themselves: On Tuesday, CCHQ announced <[link removed]> that the new Deputy Tory Party Chairman will be…Lee Anderson.



Yes, that Lee Anderson, the one who thinks anyone spending more than 30p per day on food is splashing cash, brags about how little his staffers are paid, asks his mates to pretend to be swing voters, and throws <[link removed]> boulders at stigmatised people.



Steady-hands Sunak’s star man got off to a cracking start in his first 48 hours on the job by advocating for a reinstatement of the death penalty, claiming it’s the only surefire way to prevent reoffending. We’d like to up the ante: launching the earth into the sun would also stop crime.



For your enjoyment we clipped this equally cringey and chaotic interview <[link removed]> the new Deputy Chairman gave to BBC Radio Nottingham. 



Zelenskyy addresses Parliament







Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy travelled <[link removed]> to London this week as part of his first major European trip since the Russian invasion last February. He also stopped in Paris and Brussels.



In his speech at Westminster Hall, Zelenskyy expressed gratitude for the UK’s aid to Ukraine and hailed expanded plans to train Ukrainian pilots and marines in the UK. He also reiterated pleas for the UK to send fighter jets to his country.



Zelenskyy also met the Prime Minister at Number 10 and held an audience with the King at Buckingham Palace. The visit comes nearly a year after the Russian invasion. Reports of a major planned Russian offensive to mark the anniversary have been reported <[link removed]> from the front.



Jet-setting Sunak



The Prime Minister must really, really hate spending time outside of London, because fresh reports of him spurning train travel in favour of private jets emerged <[link removed]> this week when he made two separate trips by air to the South West.



On Wednesday afternoon, the PM was in Dorset with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and on Thursday, he found himself <[link removed]> in Cornwall. Naturally, Sunak saw fit to channel his best Suella and chopper it back to London on Wednesday evening so he could return to Cornwall.



Lib Dem MP Wera Hobhouse accused <[link removed]> Sunak of playing a “reckless game” with the carbon emissions from his high-flying premiership. We’re eagerly awaiting for Sunak to fess up to how many more minutes he really wants to spend in the West Country–with all that air travel, we expect the answer will be “not another one <[link removed]>!”



Remoaners are, erm, *throws dart* meddlesome in-laws!



We’re not entirely sure what Kemi Badenoch’s new brief is following the PM’s latest cabinet reshuffle (where he didn’t see fit to remove his accused-by-20-plus-of-bullying deputy), and, judging by comments she made <[link removed]> in Rome this week, neither is the Government’s official international-trade-understander herself.







In an interview <[link removed]> with Sky News following the signing of what the Government is calling a “momentous” post-Brexit “trade partnership” with Italy, Badenoch blamed <[link removed]> the decline in UK-Italy trade on Brexit squabbles, rather than on the act of putting up a wall between the UK and its closest trade partners.



She also bizarrely claimed that pointing out how disastrous Brexit has been is the same as “asking people who just got married, ‘Where’s the baby?’”



In lieu of a joke about this, we’re going to quote Sky’s write-up: “The deal makes no change to the UK and Italy's key trading regulations - from tariffs and quotas to customs rules - but [Badenoch] said it would help improve trade between the nations.”



Polls: I’m feeling (20)22



A little over a month into the new year, the idea that Rishi Sunak would stem the Tory freefall in the polls and begin to recover numbers is starting to look more and more like wishful thinking.



A recent multilevel regression poll found <[link removed]> that, were a snap election held today, Labour would win a staggering 509 seats. The official opposition would be the SNP on 50, with the Conservatives in third at a dismal 45, and the Lib Dems would double their contingent to 23. 



Separate FocalData polling Wednesday gave <[link removed]> Labour a 26-point lead nationally, at 49%-23% for the Tories.



Despite these eye-watering numbers, Best for Britain’s analysis <[link removed]> last month found that the high number of undecided voters could pull the next election closer than it appears. Check out our front-page report <[link removed]> in the Sunday Times.







With the sun finally sticking around past 5pm in London, we’ve got dreams of summer holidays, lazy beach picnics, and, if one of us is lucky enough to become Prime Minister by June, unlimited hops via private jet. Perhaps we’ll follow Sunak’s example and take it to the pub. See you later!



Best wishes,



Tommy Gillespie

Press Officer, Best for Britain







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Best For Britain - United Kingdom

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